18 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
I feel it on behalf of the Society my duty 
as well as my pleasure to say that we 
are keenly alive to the beauties that sur¬ 
round you; and in passing, I cannot 
fail to say a word for our stricken sister 
city, now in ashes. Among the great 
disastrous fires that have visited many, 
we have been the unfortunate sufferer 
from one in our own State. Few can 
realize it. Many years ago I saw the 
ruins of the city of Chicago, one of the 
greatest calamities in the history of the 
world. We to-day mourn the loss of 
the city which is perhaps second only in 
magnitude to that proportionately. We 
assure the people of Jacksonville that 
they have our deepest sympathy. We 
have eaten salt and broken bread with 
them; we have enjoyed most keenly on 
many occasions their hospitality. We 
expect to enjoy ourselves equally keenly 
in the city of St. Augustine.” 
President's Annual Address. 
GEORGE L. TABER. 
Members of the Florida State Horticul¬ 
tural Society, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
On a fateful Friday a little less than 
three weeks ago the wires carried 
throughout the length and breadth of 
the land the dire news that the city of 
Jacksonville was in flames. The next 
day some of us drove for hours over 
fallen wires, cluttering brick and other 
unburnable debris, through smoking 
ruins of what had been the fairest resi¬ 
dence and most prosperous business 
portions of the Gate City to Florida. 
The time for our Horticultural So¬ 
ciety meeting had been set for May 21 
to 24. Hotel accommodations had 
been arranged ; transportation had been 
secured. We were to convene at the 
beautiful Board of Trade rooms in Jack¬ 
sonville. But now with her largest ho¬ 
tels vanished into thin air, her Board of 
Trade building, opera house and other 
convention places but unsightly piles of 
brick and mortar, what should we do; 
what ought we to do? 
A hasty conference of some of our of¬ 
ficers and members resulted in the decis¬ 
ion that the meeting should still be held 
in Jacksonville, provided it could be ac¬ 
complished in a way that would prove 
beneficial to Jacksonville but not other¬ 
wise. In times past we had been wel¬ 
comed there as guests. We had par¬ 
taken of the bread and salt of a city 
noted throughout the country for its 
generous hospitality. Fortune had 
been kind to some of us during the past 
year, and perhaps some of us, viewing 
the ruin wrought, would feel minded to 
contribute toward the necessities of 
those with whom fortune had dealt less 
kindly; we would at least leave in the 
city some of the dollars that trade and 
hotel bills imply, and we would recipro¬ 
cate, so far as in us lay, the kind expres¬ 
sions of encouragement, of hope and of 
