FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
21 
complains of as the; drawback of the trop¬ 
ics? 
The machinery is working which will 
bring in the plants for the horticulturists. 
It is woefully inadequate, I know better 
than you do, but at least it is function¬ 
ing. But where; are the plant breeders 
and plant breeding gardens and institu¬ 
tions where tfte arts of tropical horticul¬ 
ture are taught to the young men and 
women who are growing up here ? 
A great opportunity is here for the es¬ 
tablishment of an Institute of Tropical 
Horticulture which shall become a real 
center of learning with respect to the 
problems of the tropics. 
Florida’s isolation with a zone of cold 
land on the north and the sea on the south 
should make it possible to keep her free 
from the swarm of tropical diseases and 
insect pests which has already over¬ 
whelmed Hawaii and is rapidly sweeping 
Cuba and Porto Rico and the other West 
Indian Islands. I was shown the other 
day a photographic calendar from Ha¬ 
waii of one of those coconut-planted 
beaches and to my dismay I realized that 
the beauty of those Hawaiian palms had 
departed. A leaf moth has converted 
them into a lot of worn out feather dust¬ 
ers. Here is one spot where with intel¬ 
ligence and money we can have cultures 
of tropical plants free from disease or at 
least where the, diseases will be under 
control. 
And here I come to one of the most 
amazing performances, one of the gigan¬ 
tic gifts to the world which you pioneers 
of Florida have given. 
I know some of you will not agree with 
me. I fear some of you have been back¬ 
ward in recognizing the value of the con¬ 
tribution. Some of you may still be an¬ 
tagonistic towards those who brought the 
conditions into existence because they 
abridge your individual rights and ham¬ 
per you in your individual ambitions. 
But if I had only the command of lan¬ 
guage I would love to put this accom¬ 
plishment before you so that you could 
not fail to appreciate it. 
To one who as an orchid hunter wan¬ 
ders through the jungles of Java with its 
hundred and eighty inches of rainfall, 
every leaf seems clean and every tree free 
from disease; but a closer inspection will 
teach you that where the. trees and plants 
grow there grow their fungus diseases 
and the insect pests. As long' ago as 
1895, when I was first there the Dutch 
had been so aroused by the complete de¬ 
struction of the Java coffee plantations 
by the leaf disease that Treub, the great 
director of the Botanic Gardens, was 
building an Experiment Station after the 
pattern of our American ones in order to 
study the diseases of the. tropical crops of 
the archipelago. 
Here in Florida where you have such 
a large body of intelligent plant growers 
you have done with the aid of funds 
which a public living far away from you 
has in part supplied, an amazing thing. 
You have stamped out one of the dead¬ 
liest and most easily communicated of 
plant diseases by your combined efforts. 
You have shown that the thing is pos¬ 
sible. Can you imagine such a thing be¬ 
ing done Anywhere else—anywhere where 
there was not an intelligent public and 
easy means of communication? 
