FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
this good roads agitation, this work is 
the most important work before us today, 
the home, the mill, the mine are all handi¬ 
capped terribly, without good roads. 
Life is without sociability and work a 
drudgery. There are many lovely spots 
in our State, beautiful villages, ideal in 
every way, but the tourist or settler are 
driven to other localities by the awful 
sand roads. This is a question for each 
town to settle for themselves for the needs 
and conditions are all so different. 
We are greatly indebted to Senator 
Mann and Senator Morgan, for their 
heroic work along this line, and we feel 
sure they have the earnest support of 
every member of this Society. Let me 
suggest when you lay out your new roads, 
you call a conference of the City Fathers, 
and the Village Improvement Mothers. 
Women’s studies along these lines are 
showing them the value of nature’s free 
gifts in all States, by road-side and river, 
on mountain sides and in valleys. Im¬ 
mense amounts of beautiful and suitable 
material right at hand. They will be 
sure to get the trees planted at once and 
have all our magnificent forest trees 
represented. We like planting each spe¬ 
cies by itself, a long line of Water 
Oaks, a long line of Hollys, a long line 
of Camphor, Wild Olive, Live Oak, Pal¬ 
metto, and a long line of the queen of all 
flowering trees, the Magnolia Grandi- 
flora. This superb tree with its magnifi¬ 
cent and odorous bloom should be planted 
131 
about every Florida home and village. 
All the trees I have mentioned are ever¬ 
green—what a wonderful collection, per¬ 
fect for beautifying and shading our 
roadways. Miles of highways shaded 
with such a variety of splendid trees 
would give us, in time, such fame as have 
the giant Cryptomerians given Japan on 
her wonderful State roads. There the 
poor of the cities travel for miles on per¬ 
fect roads and under giant trees, taking 
in their rude vehicles the babies and 
kitchen outfit and journeying along for 
days out of doors and under God’s great 
canopy— they get courage and health to 
return again to the city struggle. How 
good it would be if our poor could jour¬ 
ney to the ocean or gulf—only a few pal¬ 
try miles, and it would often bring back 
health to the fever stricken and hopeless. 
In the face of the wonderful progress of 
Florida in twenty years, we feel certain 
that our good roads dreams will come 
true. The Times-Union says they will, 
and the Times-Union ought to know, 
they say we shall have an automobile 
track from North to South, and from 
East to West of the State, and in the 
near future. If there is anything in 
Christian Science let us all join heartily 
in believing in this dream, and if we are 
good Americans ‘‘hustle for it” as well, 
for nothing can 1)e more ornamental, 
more useful, more progressive than hard, 
well-shaded high wavs. 
