FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
215 
rections than the broad one of Florida 
Horticulture has been assigned to com¬ 
petent and worthy associates, who each 
have a message for you. 
SOURCE OF INFORMATION 
In preparing this paper for you I have 
drawn on my own memory extending 
over nearly twenty-three years, as well as 
published data occurring in my private li¬ 
brary as well as the data in the Experi¬ 
ment Station library. 
The amount of the horticultural litera¬ 
ture available for the period covered by 
Mr. Painter’s life is so great that it would 
fill a large volume. The usefulness of 
what I am presenting to you today will 
depend entirely upon whether or not I 
have exercised the necessary skill in se¬ 
lection and ability to present it in proper 
form. To get a comprehensive view of 
the progress of horticulture in Florida 
in the period covered it will be necessary 
to study the literature of the period cov¬ 
ered. 
THE FLORIDA AGRICULTURIST 
I have no intention of entering on an 
extended discussion of The Florida Agri¬ 
culturist. That phase of the program be¬ 
longs to one of my able colleagues. I 
must, however, mention this journal, 
founded, owned and edited by Mr. Pain¬ 
ter, as it is necessary to my thesis. Tt had 
a profound effect on the horticulture of 
Florida. No paper has so completely cov¬ 
ered the field and served the needs of its 
readers so satisfactorily as did The Flo¬ 
rida Agriculturist. 
WRITINGS ON HORTICULTURE 
Mr. Painter could not be classed as a 
voluminous or gifted writer. In his 
earlier work especially while editing The 
Florida Agriculturist, frequent papers 
from his pen appeared, but before long 
his larger business affairs absorbed so 
much time that it was a difficult matter 
to get a paper from him, even before the 
Horticultural Society. 
His fund of wit and his aptitude for 
pun pervaded his writings as well as his 
everyday conversation. In presenting a 
paper on Bermuda Onions at the Or¬ 
mond meeting, 1892, he opened his talk 
with the quotation “In (U) Onion there 
is strength.” I want to quote here an ex¬ 
tract from his paper printed in the Inter- 
lachen meeting of the Florida State Hor¬ 
ticultural Society in 1891. It gives us his 
style of writing fairly well and is also of 
special interest to us at this Palatka meet¬ 
ing since it describes Hastings as she was 
twenty-three years ago. I remember vis¬ 
iting the cucumber house referred to. 
“Last August the place now known as 
‘Hastings’ was only flat woods, and in¬ 
deed they are flat woods.* It would be 
hard to find as many acres in one body 
anywhere in the State so nearly on the 
same level, to all appearance to the eye, 
yet with a gradual slope so that perfect 
drainage can be had by ditching.” 
“The soil is similar to other flat woods, 
with hard-pan from one to three feet be¬ 
low, with considerable prairie land in¬ 
termixed, which, after draining needs 
*Proc. Fla. State Hort. Soc. V: 137, 138, 139 
(1891). 
