FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
23 
non-adaptability of this queen of fruits? 
To be sure, during storm and stress of 
weather that recent years have brought 
us, she has been seeking protection near 
the Everglades; but does this mean that 
she has abandoned her old haunts for¬ 
ever? We think not. We believe that 
all that portion of Florida that has been 
graced with her presence in the past will 
be graced with it again; that in her trip 
southward she is simply extending her 
dominion and making it that much 
larger than ever before. Her votaries 
farther up the State do not relinquish 
their claim upon her simply because 
those farther down the State have filed 
theirs. Already, with less than three 
years elapsed since the hardest freeze 
ever known in Florida, there are com¬ 
puted to be one thousand boxes of her 
golden output in sight in one grove with¬ 
in ten miles of the Georgia line. 
But it is not alone the fruits of Florida 
that demand attention at our hands; if 
so, we would be a pomological society 
rather than a horticultural one. Pomol¬ 
ogy treats of fruits and fruit trees; horti¬ 
culture embraces all of pomology and 
much more. Vegetables, shrubs and 
flowers, as well as fruits, come within the 
scope of a horticultural society. Our 
printed programme shows that all these 
are given a place. 
Referring once more to our unique 
position on the map, I wish to call atten¬ 
tion to what I believe to be a means of 
adding largely to the horticultural 
wealth of the State, if we will go at it 
systematically, and that is the growing 
of new varieties with the material already 
at hand to serve as a basis. Take for in¬ 
stance peaches, to which I have before 
alluded, and plant a few pits year after 
year from the best, earliest and most 
fruitful varieties grown in the locality 
in which each of us is situated. If each 
member of this society would do this for 
a few years in succession I believe va¬ 
rieties would be originated that would 
be to Florida what the far-famed Elber- 
ta is to Georgia and states to the north¬ 
ward. It does not take much room to 
do this; the pits may be planted one or 
two feet in the rows and rows eight feet 
apart. After they have fruited dig up 
those that produce only mediocre or 
poor fruit, and let the others stand; not 
as the basis of a commercial orchard in 
themselves, but for further test as to 
possibility of varieties that may prove 
worthy of extensive propagation and 
planting. While budded varieties only 
should form the basis of a commercial 
orchard, yet the few trees to which our 
little plot will be ultimately thinned will 
be the very best varieties out of the lot 
of seedlings produced and, whether we 
have developed anything startling or 
not, can remain as a valuable adjunct to 
our home orchard. 
I have especially mentioned peaches 
because they are easily grown, subject to 
wide variation from the seed and fruit 
while yet very young. There are thous¬ 
ands upon thousands of acres of land 
throughout both Northern and Peninsu¬ 
lar Florida that are perfectly adapted to 
peach culture. We already have good 
kinds; we might have better ones—let 
us originate them. Some of us have al¬ 
ready done something in this line, but 
it is needless to say that the efforts of a 
whole State will produce much greater 
results than the few could accomplish. 
But it is not peaches alone that hold 
out inducements in the way of origina¬ 
tion of new varieties. There are many 
other fruits that can be experimented 
