8 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
with and battling with the conditions and 
circumstances which retard or endanger 
the growth or the existence of your indus¬ 
try. Men will not, at no small expense of 
both time and money, attend these meet¬ 
ings year after year merely for the pur¬ 
pose of tossing bouquets at each other. 
You have seen the resources from the 
industries with which you are directly 
identified grow from an unclassified and 
almost negligible amount to a system¬ 
atized, stabilized, wealth-producer of the 
first magnitude in this State, and you 
know that you have hardly more than 
scratched the surface of your possibilities. 
Think for a moment of the condition of 
this wonderful country immediately sur¬ 
rounding where we now stand, a third of 
a century ago and as it is today, and the 
growth of the past, being, as it is, but an 
index of the possibilities and probabilities 
of the future, is little less than staggering. 
One reads that our citrus output increased 
almost two hundred per cent from 1910- 
11 to 1920-21, and doubts. One sees 
Florida today, and believes. I am told 
that last year alone there were planted in 
the State over a million, six hundred thou¬ 
sand citrus trees. I do not know the num¬ 
ber of pecan trees planted last year, but I 
do know that that industry is throughout 
favored sections in the State growing 
by leaps and bounds. Our orange packing 
houses represent an investment of well 
over six million dollars, and our citrus 
crop alone is now sufficient to load a solid 
train of freight cars reaching from St. 
Petersburg to Jacksonville. 
But this enterprising and aggressive 
membership does not live in the past. 
Your shadows still fall far to the west 
and your past will be used, not as a place 
in which to live, but as a place in which to 
learn. Wise men make mistakes. Fools 
make the same mistake twice. And so I 
take it you have met again in this your 
thirty-fifth gathering, not only to learn 
how best to meet and solve your various 
ever-present problems, but to take calm 
counsel among yourselves concerning the 
problems that must be met in the future. 
And let it not be forgotten that to a 
very considerable degree the problems of 
the horticulturist have become the prob¬ 
lems of the entire State, not alone because 
of the immense revenues in the form of 
taxes upon your properties, in which the 
entire State participates, but also because 
your improved properties are situated 
throughout the entire State. In your suc¬ 
cesses the entire State benefits. In your 
reverses, the entire State suffers. It is, 
therefore, the just province and duty of 
the State as a part of its governmental 
functions to reasonably aid and assist you 
in the continued upbuilding of the re¬ 
sources in which you are as citizens and 
individuals so vitally interested and in 
which you are so heavily involved. I 
think you will agree with me when I say 
that within the last eight or ten years there 
has been a wonderful awakening on the 
part of the State in this regard, and that 
while, no doubt, much remains yet to be 
done, the “breeze comes from the proper 
quarter,” and that you are justified in be¬ 
lieving that it will continue so to do. 
The careful consideration of your inti¬ 
mate problems of successful cultivation, 
fertilization and care of your diversified 
