Address of Welcome. 
BY MAYOR G. M. NOLAN. 
Mr, President^ Ladies and Gentlemen: 
In looking over this large audience I see 
a great many familiar faces, emphasizing 
the fact that you are not sojourners in our 
beautiful State nor strangers in its metro¬ 
polis, but one of the oldest organizations 
in the State and one of its staunchest pil¬ 
lars of prosperity. I am glad also to see so 
many ladies, fair daughters of Florida, 
present, and congratulate you and the 
Florida State Horticultural Society upon 
the large attendance at the opening of 
your eighteenth annual session. 
Mr. President, the city of Jacksonville 
as you know has now become one of the 
greatest convention and assembly meeting 
places in the country. I may tell you in 
advance, that the gentleman who will fol¬ 
low me in an address of welcome on be¬ 
half of the Board of Trade of this city, 
Captain C. E. Garner, will inform you 
that these annual meetings of societies and 
conventions keep the mayor almost con¬ 
stantly on his feet delivering welcoming 
addresses, and that I have a cut and dried 
speech which I deliver to every one of 
them. While it is true that it is one of the 
most important functions of the mayor¬ 
alty, these privileges are a great pleas¬ 
ure to me, and these annual meetings of 
the various societies are a great benefit 
not only to the city of Jacksonville, but to 
the State at large as well. I am not here 
to give you a cut and dried or second hand 
address of welcome, for of all the socie¬ 
ties that hold their annual sessions in this 
city, none of them are. I wish now and 
here to assure you, more heartily welcome 
than the Florida State Horticultural So¬ 
ciety, whose great work, past and future, 
for the interests of the great State of 
Florida, has been basic, and it is and will 
continue to remain one of the staunchest 
foundation-stones of the prosperity of this 
State. 
Mr. President, I must confess that I am 
not sufficiently versed in the nomenclature 
of Horticulture to know or define its 
limitations. My idea, however, is that 
horticulture embraces everything at least 
that would not properly come under the 
generic term of agriculture, and of neces¬ 
sity it must include some of the arts of 
agriculture, I therefore conclude that it is 
esthetic agriculture, it gives us the fruits 
and flowers of the gardens and orchards 
of the homes, rather than the products of 
the broad acres, and as the State of 
Florida is destined to become the garden 
and orchard of this country, the great 
work of your society is of the greatest in¬ 
terest to the prosperity of the State of 
Florida. Indeed Mr. President I have 
perceived and do perceive, as must every 
one with common knowledge of your great 
work, that upon your endeavor and 
achievement rests in a great degree the 
name and the fame of the great State of 
Florida. 
Now, Mr. President, should I attempt to 
catalogue the vast collections and varieties 
of the fruit of the orchard, the ornamen¬ 
tals of the garden, tropical and semi- 
tropical, with which every active member 
