FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
15 
oratory, this I am unable to do, it has 
always been my portion to follow the 
Honorable Mayor, and he has the happy 
faculty of covering the very points on 
which I would address you. This he does 
with so much grace and elegance that it 
would be folly for me to undertake to 
improve upon it, therefore I crave your 
indulgence in that direction, but when it 
comes to the cordiality of the welcome that 
I am commissioned to extend to you, that 
is peculiarly my province, and where I 
may fail in eloquence, I hope to come up 
to the measure of a counterbalance in the 
fullness and completeness of this privilege. 
In conclusion, Mr. President, I wish to 
announce that the Board of Trade has 
planned and arranged for a portion of 
your entertainment, a trip upon the beauti¬ 
ful St. Johns river on the good Steamer 
May Garner, which is duly announced 
upon your program. 
Trusting that the deliberations of this 
your eighteenth annual session, will prove 
to be of much pleasure to the society and 
of benefit to the State, and with as¬ 
surances of .that welcome which is yours 
as of right as your home, I bid you again 
a most hearty, cordial welcome. 
Response for the Society* 
BY C T. McCARTY. 
Mr. Mayor and Mr. President of the 
Board of Trade, and Mr. President of 
the Florida State Horticultural Society, 
Ladies and Gentlemen: 
It affords me infinite pleasure to be 
given the opportunity to reply to the glow¬ 
ing and cordial words of welcome to 
which we have listened with so much pleas¬ 
ure, uttered by his Honor, the Mayor of 
the City of Jacksonville, on behalf of its 
citizens and the President of the Board of 
Trade, representing the great commercial 
interests of this Metropolis of the great 
State of Florida. The address of wel¬ 
come of modern times has become an ora¬ 
tion—a poem, and it has been made the 
occasion for the display of wit and wis¬ 
dom, oratory and rhetoric of some of the 
most brilliant and far-seeing of our fellow- 
countrymen. The responses to the ad¬ 
dresses of welcome have necessarily had 
to keep pace with the character of the ad¬ 
dresses themselves. This has imposed 
some hardship upon those who are called 
upon to respond to these eloquent ad¬ 
dresses of welcome. 
Jacksonville is to-day pre-eminently the 
Convention City of the State. Within her 
portals she has harbored and entertained 
during the last year the various Conven¬ 
tions that have represented the great Busi¬ 
ness, Commercial, Horticultural and 
Agricultural enterprises of the State. In 
the progress of these Conventions you 
have developed some trained Orators, in 
the persons of your magnetic and eloquent 
Mayor, and your sound and far-sighted 
President of the Board of Trade. Among 
the splendid efforts that they have made 
in the past, none, we think, exceeds those 
