22 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
Have you forgotten that it was the 
entomologists and their knowledge which 
made the building of the Panama Canal 
possible? Cannot you see that the dis¬ 
coveries which led up to the control of 
the mosquito, like the discoveries which 
led up to the building of the first dynamo 
will be talked of long after the greatest 
engineering feat which was made possi¬ 
ble by it have been forgotten ? 
To have controlled a virulent plant dis¬ 
ease ! Look at it from the angle of the 
future. Go to Hawaii and see what the 
uncontrolled gathering of plants from all 
over the tropical world led to and how 
impossible it has been found to eradicate 
such pests as the fruit fly. 
You, pioneers of tropical horticulture, 
have shown the vision. Men like, your 
own neighbors here have seen the hand¬ 
writing on the wall of your gardens. They 
have seen how easily your wonderful gar¬ 
dens would fade; how the unequal fight 
with the invisible, but none the less de¬ 
structive monsters from the tropical jun¬ 
gles, are swarming over your garden 
walls and will overrun your plantations. 
You may complain that they see dan¬ 
gers where they do not exist and un¬ 
doubtedly they sometimes do, but does 
not any doctor see his patient from the 
pathological side? Are they more in¬ 
clined to exaggerate than any group of 
enthusiasts? Will all these things not 
gradually regulate themselves ? 
You see, and I quite agree with you, 
that the cold water has been thrown on 
the individual initiative which once 
prompted amateurs to send all over the 
world for plants because of the thrills 
which the introduction of a new plant 
brings with it. This work is now cen¬ 
tered in a small branch of the Federal 
Department of Agriculture in Washing¬ 
ton in so far at least as it relates to the 
out of the way parts of the world. I re¬ 
gret this, although perhaps I am as re¬ 
sponsible for its coming about as any¬ 
one; but it has been for years a dream— 
a dream which I shall have to leave to 
younger hands and brains to work out— 
that there should be in every great section 
of this country trained men whose busi¬ 
ness it is to study not only the plants 
which are grown there, but, through ex¬ 
tensive travel and repeated comparison, 
those which exist in all other parts of this 
planet which have similar conditions of 
soil and climate. The organization of a 
central office and the sending out of ag¬ 
ricultural explorers from that office has 
been a good beginning but only a begin¬ 
ning. 
The issues are too vast and the number 
of new plants too many and their study 
too complicated to make it possible in the 
brief span of a single human life to do 
more than touch such a field in the most 
superficial way. Why should it seem an 
extravagance for a great commonwealth 
to spend money on this form of research 
when it cannot fail to unearth forms of 
plants which when brought under the 
searching eyes and within the range of 
the inventive brains of thousands of ama¬ 
teurs like yourselves will yield new foods, 
produce through breeding immensely val¬ 
uable immune and hardier varieties and 
form the basis of new and lucrative plant 
industries ? 
Let me sum up as I see them your great 
opportunities. 
