FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
239 
it possible for a grower to get any kind 
of complete fertilizer, raw materials or 
chemicals that the grower’s experience in¬ 
dicated were best to use. It is a well- 
known fact, that at the present time 
( I 9 I 3 ), nowhere in the United States is 
there such a variety of commercial plant 
foods immediately available to the farm¬ 
er and horticulturist as in the State of 
Florida, and this can be attributed to his 
efforts. 
He was largely instrumental in secur¬ 
ing the enactment of the present Fertilizer 
Inspection Law and in having created the 
office of Commissioner of Agriculture 
and State Chemist in the State of Florida. 
He was interested in everything that 
tended to the upbuilding of the State and 
the communities in which he lived. At 
the age of 21 he was one of the three in- 
spectors of the election held for the in¬ 
corporation of the town of DeLand, Fla. 
He was one of the charter members of 
the First Baptist Church in DeLand, 
which was organized in 1880, and from 
early life he took a specially active part 
in Sunday School work. He was an ac¬ 
tive and earnest worker on the Board of 
Trustees of John B. Stetson University 
at DeLand, being one of the oldest mem¬ 
bers’of the board at the time of his death. 
He was a charter member of the Flor¬ 
ida State Horticultural Society, and 
served as its Secretary for a number of 
years. He was a member of the Masonic 
Order and Odd Fellows, an active work¬ 
er and member of the Jacksonville Port 
Commissioners, a member of the Building 
Committee of the Young Men’s Christian 
Association and was foremost in the work 
of the Children’s Home Society and the 
Central City Mission. He was most ac¬ 
tive in the cause of temperance and in 
procuring proper legislation to control the 
liquor traffic and served for a number of 
years as treasurer of the Anti-Saloon 
League. 
He was truly classed as a developer, a 
man of distinctive, far-reaching and 
progressive ideas and endeavors. 
He threw his whole soul and energy 
into the bettering of the horticultural and 
agricultural conditions throughout each 
and every section of the State of Florida. 
His eyes were on South America. He 
foresaw vast opportunities for Florida in 
the development of closer relations with 
South America and was giving his most 
earnest co-operation in opening the way 
for closer trade communications. He was 
the first chairman of the Committee on 
Foreign Commerce appointed by the 
Jacksonville Board of Trade, the creation 
of this committee being largely due to his 
report to the Board of Trade, after his 
extended trip to the West Indies, Vene¬ 
zuela and Latin-American states—upon 
the advisability of encouraging the South 
American trade. 
Early in the forenoon of May 22d, 
1913, when crossing the St. Johns River 
enroute to his fertilizer works at South 
Jacksonville, he was seized with a fit of 
coughing and stepping to the outer rail of 
the boat, lost his balance and fell into the 
river and was drowned. His body was 
not recovered until some hours afterward. 
He is survived by his wife, Martha S. 
Painter, and one daughter, Okie C. Paint- 
