10 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
rectly or primarily engaged in horticul¬ 
ture. Our lumber and naval stores indus¬ 
tries cannot forever last. From the math¬ 
ematics of the situation we know this to 
be true. He is not an alarmist who tells 
us that at the present rapid rate of lum¬ 
ber depletion, both by cutting and by fire, 
and the present slow rate of lumber propa¬ 
gation, the time is rapidly approaching 
when not only will our export lumber 
trade be no more, but when we will not 
have sufficient to provide for our housing 
problems and our crate materials. It is 
most sobering to contemplate the fact that 
our new plantings of fruit, and our exten¬ 
sive and growing truck industry, will in¬ 
crease the demand for crates several hun¬ 
dred-fold in the near future, and that the 
supply is decreasing with equal rapidity. 
And thus we have a vital problem, affect¬ 
ing directly our horticulturist, and also 
our mill man, our farmer and our cattle¬ 
man. Personally, there is nothing that 
appeals to me of more vital interest to the 
future welfare of all the people of this 
State than the formulation and positive 
promulgation of some plan of timber con¬ 
servation and re-forestration. I believe, 
too, that this can be brought about not 
without some inconvenience to the indus¬ 
tries directly or indirectly affected, and 
not without some modifications of the 
old-time ways, but most certainly without 
destruction to these industries and, in the 
end, for their permanent good, and for the 
ultimate welfare of the people as a whole. 
Nature has not endowed us with depos¬ 
its of gold, silver, copper, iron or coal, and 
the great factories depending on any of 
them will in the main continue to be found 
near the source of raw supply. Proud 
though we are of all our varied resources, 
zealous as we must always be of their pro¬ 
tection, yet, my friends, as we see much of 
our natural wealth being rapidly depleted; 
as we see our immigration continuing, as 
in the past, second to no Eastern or South¬ 
ern state; as we contemplate that in the 
year of 1920-21 our people did more than 
25% of the entire building done in the 
entire United States; as we thus see our 
State becoming one of permanent happy 
homes we are, my friends, impressed with 
the fact that the great handmaiden of hor¬ 
ticulture, linked with her by indissoluble 
bonds of mutual needs, mutual ambitions 
and mutual opportunities, will be agricul¬ 
ture. Over 70% of our farmers own 
their own homes, and over 85% of our 
white farmers operate their own farms. 
But in no state in the Union is scientific 
and expert knowledge more necessary for 
success. And hence every agency of our 
government, both state and national, 
whose business it is to accurately acquire 
and intelligently distribute such knowl¬ 
edge, must be encouraged, supported and 
enlarged. 
But I must not continue longer. No 
one need endeavor to discuss all the prob¬ 
lems which confront an ambitious people 
in a State of such positive possibilities as 
ours. They are a ringing challenge for 
closer co-operation, renewed energy, and 
aggressive action, but in meeting them the 
achievements of this society in the past 
are, I predict, but a dim prophesy of what 
they will be in the future. 
On a bright October forenoon in 1918 
a young American lieutenant had with his 
