FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
168 
Florida, and which may be grown with 
confidence in any portion of the State. 
The Canary date palm, a much larger one, 
is a strong competitor for the first place. I 
also discussed the use of the cabbage 
palmetto as a tree for street planting. 
This palm is less appreciated than it 
would be if it was of a foreign introduc¬ 
tion. 
GIVE PLENTY OF ROOM. 
In my paper today I want to discuss 
the purpose of planting about the home 
place. We have such wealth of beautiful 
plants belonging to almost every family 
mentioned in the Horticultural Manuals 
that we hardly know which to choose. 
We see so many splendid specimens every 
time we look about us that we do not 
know which one to prefer above another. 
I fear that some of us are like the donkey 
in Aesop’s Fables, who was very hun¬ 
gry, and was placed between a sheaf of 
oats and a sheaf of wheat, when he 
made up his mind to take a bite of the 
wheat, he remembered how splendidly the 
oats tasted and turned his attention to 
the oats, and before he could get a bite 
of oats the sweetness of the wheat turned 
» 
him to the wheat, and in his indecision 
he died of starvation between the two 
sheaves. 
To be able to plant a home place cor¬ 
rectly, one must have the power of pro¬ 
jecting himself into the future. He must 
see in his mind’s eye what the place will 
look like not in a few weeks nor a few 
months, but after the lapse of five or ten 
years. I fear that many fail to perceive 
what results the planting will give at the 
end of five or ten years, hence a great 
deal of the home planting gives one the 
feeling that the author of the planting 
has had no plan in mind, but simply a 
medley of confused ideas. The first nice 
plant we get is too frequently set out on 
the most conspicuous portion of the 
ground whether it will finally give good 
results, or not. It so happens therefore 
that the home planting shows very little 
or no individuality of the owner, so he 
loses the greatest pleasure of all. The 
millionaire can pay some one else for the 
brains of carrying this out. He will have 
the only satisfaction of knowing that his 
money has been well spent or has been 
wasted. The home planter, on the other 
hand, will have a chance of working out 
his own ideas. 
The first mistake generally made is 
that we plant too much stuff about our 
dwellings. When a tree is small it oc¬ 
cupies no' more space than a pot plant. 
The first effect gives us the feeling of 
bareness, we therefore repeatedly make 
the mistake of planting closely. After we 
have nursed the plant for five or ten years 
it becomes endeared to us, and it is im¬ 
possible for us to cut it down and de¬ 
stroy it. To avoid this.disaster, we fre¬ 
quently have our plantings look like a 
medley rather than the mortification of 
rudely destroying some of our best 
friends. 
I am presenting to you today some 
photographs which will illustrate the 
points I have in my mind much more fully 
than could be explained by words. 
The dwelling which we inhabit becomes 
the central figure, and whether it becomes 
a house or a home, it depends entirely 
upon the way we treat it. How often 
