FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
123 
not only help them overcome all pos¬ 
sible difficulties, but would make the 
struggle together, a real happiness. 
Their faith was justified. The dark 
days came, but they were not cast 
down, for they had each other and that 
to them, always meant more than any¬ 
thing else. 
The happiness of their home life, the 
remarkable harmony of their union, 
deeply impressed all who were allowed 
the privilege of intimate association, 
and the desolation of such happiness 
weighs heavily on the hearts of their 
friends. 
In 1882 Mr. McCarty entered the 
Lawr Department of the Iowa State 
University, graduating with honor at 
the close of his course. After devoting 
a year to the practice of his profession 
lie was induced to accept a professor¬ 
ship at Tilford, where he remained un¬ 
til 1888. 
His work as a teacher was of a high 
order, adding markedly to the strength 
of the school and leaving an imperish¬ 
able impression upon the minds and 
hearts of the hundreds of young people 
who came under his influence. His 
power was felt outside as well as in¬ 
side the class-room. He was friend 
as welt as instructor. He not only 
drilled his students in the acquisition 
of knowledge, but he interwove facts 
with a broad philosophy, which gave 
them warmth and vital significance. 
On February 19th of this year the 
alumni of Tilford held a memorial 
service in honor of their beloved 
tcachei*. Hundreds attended and their 
sincere sorrow showed that the years 
had not lessened their regard for Mr. 
McCarty, nor their appreciation of his 
worth. Thus it is that fellow students 
and pupils after an interval of twenty 
years, declare that Mr. McCarty, '‘en¬ 
riched and inspired their lives and 
generously helped to lead them out to 
broader and better fields.'’ 
In the year 1888, driven by ill health, 
he severed his connection with Tilford, 
left a state where friends were legion, 
and with his brave wife and three small 
sons, began his struggle with the 
wilderness of Southern Florida. In a 
tiny clearing at what was then Ankona, 
but is now Eldred, he built his humble 
dwelling. On its site there now stands 
a handsome residence, and the wilder¬ 
ness has given place to broad, highly 
improved acres. The mighty change 
stands as a monument to his unusual 
keenness of foresight, to his tireless 
industry and his inflexible determina¬ 
tion. 
He entered into the cultivation of 
his pineapples, not only with the 
shrewd practicality of the business 
man, but with the eagerness of the 
earnest student entering a new field of 
knowledge. As it was with pineapples, 
so it was with the citrus fruits, or in 
fact, with anything which gave promise 
of becoming a valuable resource of his 
newly adopted state. He was always 
student and scientist as well as culti¬ 
vator. 
In 1895 the English Government 
was looking for a person competent to 
judge of the possibilities of the Baha¬ 
ma Islands and instruct the people 
living there, in the art of turning such 
possibilities into valuable facts. At 
that time Mr. McCarty had become 
so widely acknowledged as* an au¬ 
thority on semi-tropical industries, that 
he was chosen to fill this important 
and honorable position. 
