222 
FLORIDA' STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
Mr. Jones: I rise to emphasize the in¬ 
vitation that has been made by our rep¬ 
resentative from Arcadia. Before I came 
here, I thought that Palatka and Arca¬ 
dia were a long distance apart, but since 
I listened to the speeches of the gentle¬ 
men from Palatka, I have come to the 
conclusion that Arcadia must be a sub¬ 
urb of Palatka. But this one time, the 
tail is going to be heavier than the kite, 
and the kite is not going to fly very high. 
I represent, not only the city bodies, 
but the farmers, and, in fact, the entire 
people in that section. 
Yes, we should have a place where you 
can be entertained royally, as the Palatka 
representative said, and we have that 
place in Arcadia. We could entertain a 
convention twice the size of this wlith 
the greatest ease. We offer you every¬ 
thing that has been offered to you by 
others, and more, too. 
But inasmuch as I have only three min¬ 
utes, I am not going to try to tell you all 
we will do for you. Not only do we 
have orange groves, but we have phos¬ 
phate plants, we have cattle ranges, we 
have all the industries that will interest 
all branches of the subjects we take up, 
and we expect to show them all to you 
in addition to the special lines that you 
go there for. 
The argument that we should go to 
Palatka because it is a central point, I 
do not deem a good one, for the reason 
that we are not seeking the central point. 
If we were seeking a central point, we 
would choose Orlando, or some nearby 
place, and let it stay there permanently. 
The fact that Palatka has asked for 
it so many times is,,no argument. If that 
was an argument that' would insure suc¬ 
cess, W. J. Bryan would have been Pres¬ 
ident of these United States many, many 
years ago. (Laughter and applause.) 
I have heard the criticism that we can¬ 
not accommodate you. We can; we have 
ample room to take care of this conven¬ 
tion, or we would not have presented the 
invitation. I offer $100.00 for the man 
who can prove that we cannot take care 
of a convention twice this size. 
Our friends from Palatka have been 
handing around knives for souvenirs, 
probably with the intention of making 
interest for Palatka more keen, but I 
am afraid they are going to cut off their 
opportunities for success. (Laughter.) 
I extend to you a hearty invitation 
from every one of the interests I have 
mentioned, and I am sure that you will 
agree with me that Arcadia, the largest 
orange shipping point in the State of 
Florida, is the next logical place of meet¬ 
ing. 
Mr. Carlton: I would like to add a 
word, too. I am here representing Ar¬ 
cadia ; we want you next year, and we ex¬ 
pect to have you. We have every fa¬ 
cility for entertaining the convention. My 
sympathy and my interest is with Pa¬ 
latka, I think, from an educational stand¬ 
point; they would be benefited for the 
reason that after they have gone to Ar¬ 
cadia and seen what is there they can 
go back to Palatka and say, “the half has 
never been told.” If the gentlemen from 
that little town situated on the St. Johns 
River, go to Arcadia and see how we do 
things, they will go back with new ideas 
