20 
SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE 
The pomology of southeastern Texas, so distinct from that 
of other parts of the state, has vastly outstripped the most 
sanguine expectations of her students of forty years ago.” 
Texas is about as large as New England and the Middle 
States, or all the cotton states east of the Mississippi river 
combined. In the older settled districts in the northern part 
of the state, fruit culture has been long established, and is 
about as nearly related to the pomology of the coast as the 
pomology of upper Georgia is to that of Florida. Less than 
a year ago the Texas State Horticultural Society met at 
Rockport, which is well down on the coast. The fruit exhibit 
came from the coast country. Referring to it, the leading 
horticultural journal of the state, the “Firm and Ranch,” 
says: The exhibits were the finest ever seen in the state. 
Attracted by its horticultural advantages, people are going, 
to this country for the purpose of fruit growing, new towns 
are springing up, land is being cleared and hundreds of or¬ 
chards planted. They are having such a boom over there a & 
we had late in the seventies. 
Working under conditions similar to ours, raising the 
same fruits for the same markets we do, these intelligent, 
energetic horticulturists of the Texas coast country are, not 
only competitors and compeers from whom we have much to 
fear, as well as much to learn, but, the}' are also neighbors;, 
for it is but a short span from the Perdido to the Sabine, and 
the intervening strip across lower Alabama, Mississippi and 
Louisiana is of the same character, part and parcel ot the 
sub-tropical region of the Gulf. 
Running over the history of horticultural progress on op¬ 
posite sides of the Gulf, one is struck that the lines followed 
are so nearly parallel. 
Twenty years ago our first State horticultural society 
was organized at Palatka, and called the Florida Fruit 
Growers’ Association. Its second, and perhaps most impor¬ 
tant meeting was held in 1875 in this city, scarce a block 
from this spot. The governor thought the occasion of suf¬ 
ficient importance to require the presence of himself and cab¬ 
inet, and in response to the invitation of the association, the 
legislature adjourned to enable its members to come down 
from Tallahassee and attend. There are a few, a very few 
persons in attendance at this meeting who will recall with* 
what interest we listened to the discussion on “Florida as 
Compared with the West,” led off by the venerable Solon. 
Robinson, ex-agricultural editor of the New York Tribune, 
Floridian by adoption, or to Col. Dane}', the pioneer orange- 
grower, a recognized authority, one of the few men at that 
time possessed of an old bearing grove, as he expatiated upon* 
