FLORIDA ;STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
trouble than anything that has ever hap¬ 
pened to the Island—efforts to keep out 
mosquitoes and snakes not excepted. It 
appears that some years ago, somebody 
brought some lantana and started it there, 
and in a little while it spread until now 
it has taken the whole country. Our 
trouble with the water hyacinth is nothing 
compared with the lantana over there. 
They think lately, that they have dis¬ 
covered some natural enemy that will help 
them out, and it is to be hoped that they 
have. 
We will now leave Hawaii and pass 
on to Japan; another twelve days’ sail 
across another section of the Pacific 
Ocean. Think of the magnitude of the 
Pacific Ocean; eight days to Honolulu 
and twelve days from there to Japan! 
One morning we heard the anchor go 
down and realized that we were in Yok¬ 
ohama. It was not quite daylight, and I 
did not propose to be caught napping as 
in Honolulu, so got up early and went on 
deck. The vessel had swung around un¬ 
til the stern was toward land, and f be¬ 
held one of the most beautiful mountain 
peaks in the world; that is, perhaps the 
most beautiful after Mount Kanier and 
some others in America. The star Venus 
hung very low over the mountain, and the 
moon was still above the horizon. The 
snow-capped mountain was glittering in 
the morning sun, which had not yet risen 
where we were. It was forty miles off, 
but seemed much nearer. I was utterly 
lost in wonder and admiration of this 
remarkable constellation of Venus, Fuj¬ 
iyama and the moon. Suddenly a very 
soft voice behind me said, “Did you ever 
see anything so beautiful in your life?” 
I turned around and was confronted by 
95 
a most charming widow who was travel¬ 
ing with us. I looked directly at her a 
moment, and said, “I certainly never did.” 
Then her face took on a more roseate hue 
than the rising sun was giving to the east¬ 
ern horizon. We were in the land of the 
“Rising Sun.” 
Japan is the most marvelous country on 
the face of the earth. The Japanese are 
the most wonderful and progressive na¬ 
tion in the world. Next to the United 
States, I would say, comes Japan and then 
Germany. They are fully informed and 
up-to-date in everything in the way of 
science, in statecraft, in education, in mil¬ 
itary matters, in commerce, in horticul¬ 
ture and, in fact, in everything that is 
advanced and that seems to them good 
and valuable. They are not trammelled 
or bound up in superstition or prejudice; 
they are not controlled by precedent or 
tradition, and simply appropriate to them¬ 
selves everything that they find good and 
useful. 
Out at the Imperial Experiment Sta¬ 
tion at Akishi, after I had been shown 
around and had seen some very wonder¬ 
ful things in the way of apples, pears, 
peaches, citrus fruits, etc., all growing in 
plots side by side, the manager of the sta¬ 
tion said : “One thing we are very proud 
of is from your country. It is the Ben- 
davis apple.” I couldn’t think to save my 
life what it was until it suddenly dawned 
upon me that he meant the Ben Davis 
apple. 
In Japan, every fruit, every flower, 
every vegetable that grows in our coun¬ 
try, in all their varieties, can be produced, 
and they have even improved a great 
many things that we still cling to. 
