94 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
about Riverside may be understood, per¬ 
haps, by looking at the picture taken on 
the spot, which I will pass around. This 
shows you the ground covered with or¬ 
anges. It looks very much like they were 
little pebbles, but they are oranges. You 
can scarcely see the ground for the or¬ 
anges. Instead of being discouraged, 
they were getting ready for the next crop. 
It is wonderful what an amount of pluck 
the people out in California* have. It 
was a lesson to me to see how much of 
adversity they ignored and what* they 
had in the way of optimism and back¬ 
bone. 
We sailed from San Francisco on the 
5th of February. Our first stop was 
eight days later in Honolulu, in the Haw¬ 
aiian Islands. When we got into the har¬ 
bor, in the morning before it was fairly 
light, someone knocked vigorously at my 
door and a familiar voice said, “Get up, 
Doctor, I want to see you.” It turned out 
to be a Tampa boy who is connected with 
the United States army engineering de¬ 
partment out there. He was very anx¬ 
ious to see me. It is a long way from 
Tampa, Florida, to Honolulu, and he 
had been there three years, so he was 
mighty glad to see someone from home. 
It wasn’t long before, in the course of 
the conversation, he said, confidentially, 
“Say, Doctor, these folks here think they 
have some good pineapples, but I have 
told them if they wanted a really good 
pineapple, they had to go to South Flor¬ 
ida to get it. I want you to bear me out 
in that statement, if you never do any¬ 
thing else for me.” 
As a matter of fact, I will say, as a 
horticulturist and as an amateur in judg¬ 
ing fruits, I never in my life tasted as de¬ 
licious pineapples as the pineapples raised 
in the Hawaiian Islands. They fairly 
melt in your mouth. I was glad, indeed, 
that I did not have to back up my friend’s 
statement and lie like a gentleman as to 
the pineapples. I admired his loyalty, but 
let us not forget that the Hawaiian Is¬ 
lands belong to the United States and arc 
a part of our country, so it is all right for 
us to be justly proud of their products. 
It is a remarkable fact that the soil 
and climate of the Hawaiian Islands will 
produce anything that will grow any¬ 
where. The climate is incomparable, and 
the only thing that is necessary to do is 
to plant what you want to raise. Un¬ 
fortunately, they have not always been 
wise, in the matter of planting. The ma¬ 
nia along agricultural lines is the pro¬ 
ducing of sugar, and it is not hard to 
understand this one-sided policy when 
you realize the amount of sugar they can 
get from an acre on the islands. They 
raise fine mangoes and quite a gO€?d deal 
of rice is raised by the Japanese and Chi¬ 
nese, but everything is neglected because 
of the sugar monopoly. Some of the 
most beautiful flowers I ever saw in my 
life were in Honolulu. The hedges 
around the home lots are simply gorgeous 
beyond description. One of the most 
beautiful is called Joseph’s Coat—I do not 
remember the botanical name for it, but 
it was beautiful. Oranges and other 
fruits are raised only to a limited extent, 
as in Cuba; they seem to have only a few 
oranges in the back yard for home :on- 
sumption. Strawberries and small fruits 
are grown to quite a large extent. 
Speaking about anything and every¬ 
thing growing there; they are afflicted 
with a pest that has caused them more 
