FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
7 
plishcd was a satisfaction to him and a 
compensation. 
Now I want to say one word to those 
who carried on that fight. You are the 
men who know citrus canker and are the 
ones who can detect it should it break out 
again. You are our Home Guards, you 
are our National Guards, you are our Re¬ 
serve Corps. I know that through the 
service you have rendered the State that 
you love Florida and that should the oc¬ 
casion arise, you will come to the rescue 
and therefore we can sleep well at night 
and live on in peace because we have con¬ 
fidence in our Reserve Corps. By your 
actions you have proven yourselves to be 
dependable and I express in the name of 
the Horticultural Society our love for you 
and that love is a sincere one. We have 
confidence in you because you have prov¬ 
en yourselves worthy of our love and our 
gratification and in the name of the so¬ 
ciety and all the citrus growers of Florida, 
I welcome you. 
Response 
Hon. Frank Jennings, Jacksonville 
Mr. Hume, Members of the Society, La¬ 
dies and Gentlemen: 
I assure you that I received a few days 
ago the invitation to make this address 
with both surprise and pleasure, but that I 
accepted it with some considerable trep¬ 
idation. I recognize full well the fact that 
this is one of the largest organizations of 
its kind in the world, overwhelmingly out¬ 
ranking any similar society in this section 
of the country, and I know that among 
your members are men whose learning, 
abilities and achievements have received 
merited note and recognition, not alone 
throughout this great State, but through¬ 
out every clime wherein horticulture is of 
considerable importance. 
Had you met merely for the purpose of 
discussing and re-living your problems 
and your achievements of the past, your 
convention would be a happy and a profit¬ 
able one. For while your trials and trib¬ 
ulations of the past have been varied and, 
in some instances, extremely serious, they 
have in the main been met and overcome 
with such clear vision, supreme courage 
and dependable co-operation that your so¬ 
ciety today can look back over a most in¬ 
spiring record of growth, progress and 
achievement, a result, be it said, in which 
not your members alone are interested, but 
one which has redounded to the better¬ 
ment, the growth, the wealth and the up¬ 
building of the entire commonwealth. 
As it is impossible for an individual to 
grow physically strong without exercise, 
or to grow in character without meeting 
and overcoming the problems of daily life, 
just as truly is it impossible for any or¬ 
ganization of this character to live and 
grow and continuously increase in 
strength and influence without grappling 
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