78 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The photograph which I present here¬ 
with is taken from young specimens that 
are about six years old. These have been 
grown under fairly favorable condi¬ 
tions, but specimens fully as beautiful are 
produced in many other places, at the 
same age. From this it will be seen that 
this makes a very handsome ornamental 
very early in its history. When grown to 
full size its trunk reaches up to fifty or 
more feet. 
These plants can be obtained from 
nurserymen at so reasonable a cost that no 
one need be without several specimens. 
Small seedlings can be had at ten cents 
each, while large plants, showing charac¬ 
ter of leaves, cost only thirty-five cents 
each. It is, therefore, most desirable to 
secure the largest sized specimens and 
plant these out directly where they are to 
grow, so that they may become established 
and grow up with that portion of the door 
yard. 
They should be plantedjin a rich, moist 
place, where the leaves can have a spread 
of at least twenty-five feet. In planting 
palms most of us are apt to be a little nig¬ 
gardly about the space. This is probably 
due to the fact that we have been brought 
up to regard palms as conservatory plants, 
where we see these specimens in a pot- 
bound and dwarfed condition. 
Before setting out, the place where the 
plant is to stand should be dug out and a 
liberal quantity of compost or rich soil 
placed in the holes unless, indeed, the soil 
is already very fertile, as occurs in a few 
of the hammocks and along our water 
courses. 
When the plant has become thoroughly 
established, it should be regularly and lib¬ 
erally fertilized with a brand of good 
nursery tree fertilizer. As the foliage of 
these plants is the desirable portion, the 
fertilizer formula should be high in am¬ 
monia. Liberal applications of compost 
continue to be advantageous after the 
plant has become thoroughly established, 
and even after it has grown into a large 
tree. 
Canary Date Palm. 
This • palm is technically known as 
Phoenix Canariensis. I take the follow¬ 
ing quotation from Bailey’s Cyclopedia of 
Horticulture: Canariensis is the 
noblest of all Phoenixes, and one of the 
most majestic palms in cultivation. Its 
rate of growth is astonishing; a tree sup¬ 
posed to be only ten years old had a trunk 
four feet high, three feet in diameter at 
the base, with about one hundred leaves, 
forming a head twenty-five feet across. 
Another specimen of about the same size 
bore eight bunches of fruit, each weighing 
about fifty pounds.” This is one of the 
very best of the palm family for planting 
in the open lawn. When two or three feet 
high it begins to make a very pleasing 
and pleasant object, and never lessens in 
attractiveness. If the plant be well cared 
for and grown to its proper proportion it 
will increase in beauty from year to year, 
and we need have very little or no fear of 
losing it from the incursion of occasional 
frost or cold weather. 
This plant adapts itself remarkably well 
to the various locations in the state. Fine 
specimens of this species are growing on 
Cape Florida, open to the direct wind 
from the ocean, and only a few feet above 
the tide. In spite of the fact that the sea 
breezes constantly sweep across these 
plants they are always looking most heal¬ 
thy and beautiful. It has been reported 
that during the recent hurricane the sea 
water was driven entirely around the 
roots of these trees, and yet they show no 
