23 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
A wonderful climate for horticultural 
operations. An isolation which can be 
made a protection against the plant dis¬ 
eases of the tropics, and permit a degree 
of control of those diseases which is 
hardly to be hoped for anywhere else in 
the world. A public coming right to your 
groves with more money to spend than 
had the kings and courtiers of a few gen¬ 
erations ago. A public, furthermore, 
which has not fixed its tastes on certain 
things to the exclusion of all others. A 
commonwealth filled with those; restless 
spirits—those American pioneers—with¬ 
out whom this country would not be to¬ 
day what it is, the most rapidly evolv¬ 
ing country in the whole world. And a 
mission which reaches far beyond the 
confines of your State—the. mission of 
educating a hundred millions of people 
regarding that wealth of tropical foods 
and other useful plant material which lies 
as yet almost untouched in the tropical 
forests and savannahs of the world. 
The opportunities are here, but you * 
must build higher your centers of learn¬ 
ing. Increase with all the speed you can 
your laboratories of research. Gather 
together great collections of the plants 
- which will grow here and furnish mate¬ 
rials for the breeders. Open the. doors 
of opportunity for those bright eyed, cu¬ 
rious minded, little boys and girls who 
today are catching butterflies and gath¬ 
ering snails and fishing on the keys when 
they are not picking fruit in your groves. 
It is those boys and girls who are to be 
the great pioneers of the tropics and if 
they know what they can learn of them 
in this State before they set sail they will 
be able to accomplish what they set out to 
do before the enervating tropical climate 
shall have sapped their ‘energies and am¬ 
bitions. 
Ladies and gentlemen, a great future is 
before you. 
