18 
SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE 
Western Texas and Southern New Mexico, which form the 
back bone of the continent where crossed by our southern 
boundary, our sub-tropical regions lie in two segments, one at 
either end of this line. 
I trust I shall be pardoned these allusions to trite ge¬ 
ographical facts, I wish to emphasize the point that our 
sub-tropical country is naturally and widely seperated into 
two great divisions. The sub-tropical region of the Pacific 
lying crescent shaped convex to the Western ocean, with its 
horns resting on the Golden Gate and the Arizona line;, 
and the sub-tropical region of the Gulf, likewise cresent 
shaped, concave to the Gulf of Mexico, and extending from 
Cape Sable to the Rio Grande. 
These two widely separated regions have much less in 
common than we have been wont to think, While both are 
sub tropical, they are at variance in topography, soil, cli¬ 
mate and productions. This difference is most apparent in 
the two extremes. California farthest west, and Florida 
farthest east. There the surface is broken, even moun¬ 
tainous, here level; their climate is unlike ours in nearly 
every condition, the only marked similarity being that 
neither is subject to very low ranges of temperature; they 
have weather incident to narrow strips betw< en high moun¬ 
tains, or between high mountains ancl the sea; our atmos¬ 
pheric conditions are modified by the broad expanse of water 
which surrounds us; their seasons are the reverse of ours,, 
their soils require different manipulation than ours; in hor¬ 
ticulture their most valued acquisitions come from Europe, 
ours from Eastern Asia. I will not stop to amplify these 
dissimilarities, which are apparent, nor to point out others 
that might be mentioned. 
Because California products have been found in a few mar¬ 
kets alongside of our own; because California also raises 
oranges; or because there, too, palm trees grow in the south¬ 
ernmost confines, we have fallen into the habit of measuring 
ourselves up by the side of California, and have come to 
look upon the Golden Gate as our competitor and exemplar. 
But, Mr. President and fellow members, I submit that the 
horticulture of the Pacific coast is too dissimilar to have 
value as a criterion, and California is too far away to become 
a rival. 
Dismissing the Pacific sub-tropical region, let us consider 
for a moment the othei great sub-tropical region of the 
United States, the Gulf coast country, of which our own 
state forms a part, but, let us not deceive ourselves—by no 
means the only important part. 
While we have been taken up with the California bugaboo, 
