FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
II5 
many Horticulturists and Agriculturists 
to-day to prove that it is not only as profi¬ 
table but equally elevating and independ¬ 
ent, besides more genteel. I want to 
make the prediction that fifty years hence 
will see more independent farmers than 
merchants, doctors and lawyers combined 
in Florida,^ or in this whole Southland of 
ours. 
Someone said recently: 
*‘What we need now is men of well 
trained brains, who will organize and 
diversify agricultural industry,^’ and it is 
true. We have greater need of men than 
plowmen. 
One need only to watch the real estate 
transfers to learn that all the most de¬ 
sirable properties are being taken by the 
‘‘New Comer.” Men who know a good 
thing when they see it, yet our young 
men are daily leaving these identical farms 
seeking to better their positions socially 
morally and financially, with what results ? 
How soon do they realize their mistake, 
some soon enough to get back before the 
Old Home passes into new hands. Then 
watch with what tenacity they cling to 
that Home and farm. But then there are 
those who cannot see the mistake in time, 
and to him there is nothing left but to 
drift with the tide of Human Pick Hands 
until his days are no more. 
Then what shall we do ? 
There ought to be and there is a remedy, 
and that remedy is at hand—teach 
the Agriculturist Agriculture. Require 
every public school to teach agriculture, 
not only the rudiments of agriculture, but 
horticulture, forestry, and all its other 
kindred subjects. Let it be one of the es¬ 
tablished studies in all public schools, and 
if necessai*}^ make the study attractive by 
offering premiums for a complete course. 
But do not understand me to cast a single 
straw or deprecating word against the 
work of our present established institu¬ 
tions. They are doing all they can, be¬ 
ing handicapped as they are, but they 
cannot reach the element we want, we 
want the farmers’ sons. To be “like 
father like son,” and we can only have this 
so by making the farm life interesting to 
our young men and boys, get their hearts 
interested in this work, teach them the 
science of horticulture, the business of 
agriculture. Show them the independ¬ 
ence, the comfort, the profit, of the life 
of agricultural science and you have won 
a crown of glory for the noblest calling of 
man. 
