124 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Born in Mississippi . 2,102 
Born in Pennsylvania . 1^843 
Born in Massachusetts. 1,402 
Born in Louisiana . i ,357 
All the other States and territories are 
represented in Florida’s population, 
though the above list embraces all States 
that have 1,000 or more representatives 
in our population. 
What I desire particularly to empha¬ 
size—is that Florida has had a greater 
proportionate increase in population than 
any other State, except the few Northern 
States mentioned previously, that have 
been filled up by foreign immigrants; 
exploited by the railroads and immigrant 
ships—for simply “business reasons.” 
The “Foreign Immigrant” is exploited 
Ijy the “Immigrant Ship” and railroad 
like any other commercial commodity. 
Lumber, merchandise, beef, or pork; cat¬ 
tle or hogs. And were it not for the 
laws prohibiting individuals (or corpora¬ 
tions), importing contract labor, the ques¬ 
tion of foreign immigration would be 
solved at once by the importation of mil¬ 
lions of coolies—not Chinamen, Japanese 
or Malays necessarily, but millions of 
“Redemptioners,” from all parts of 
Europe, who would be sold for a term of 
years, to those desiring labor, miners, 
manufacturers, planters, saw mill and 
turpentine operators, for simply enough 
to pay their passage and a profit to the 
transportation lines, as was done during 
the early years of the last century. 
Another remarkable feature of Flori¬ 
da’s population—not only the great pre¬ 
ponderance of American born citizens, is 
the great number of native born children; 
a population of 528,000 in igoo—shows 
270,293 children, or youths less than 20; 
197,600 of school age; and 72,693 less 
than four years old, more than half of our 
population. Such facts are potent argu¬ 
ments against foreign immigrants, par¬ 
ticularly when we know that thousands 
of our best American citizens are now 
seeking homes in the State. That this 
domestic immigration is rapidly increas¬ 
ing is patent to any one who is noting 
the rapid filling up of the whole State. 
I think the State census of 1905 will 
surprise many of our peole, when the 
increase of population is noted, particu¬ 
larly the natural increase. Race suicide 
can by no means be charged against 
Florida, where over one-half of the popu¬ 
lation are school children, or younger. 
That Florida needs, or can comfort¬ 
ably care for—more people, is true; that 
she is obtaining them more rapidly than 
any other Atlantic State, is also true; 
that by natural increase and by American 
immigration—men and women from the 
Southeastern States particularly, she is 
rapidly filling up the vacant places is also 
true. 
Speaking of vacant lands. United 
States lands, I desire to call your at¬ 
tention to the fact that there is compar¬ 
atively little vacant land. State or United 
States, remaining. The State has little 
left, no homestead lands at all, and has 
claims against what remains unallotted 
of some four millions of acres more than 
she has to meet the claims with. 
United States homesteads are being 
rapidly exhausted. Most of the desirable 
homesteads are now occupied. The re¬ 
cent “Stone and Timber acts” are rapidly 
absorbing the remainder of the United 
States lands. Ninety per cent, of the 
public domain has passed into the pos¬ 
session of individuals, syndicates and 
corporations, during the past twenty 
years. Not only in this, but in other 
States. 
