FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
28 
or plowing at all for that matter. And, 
by the way, they have no lop-eared mules 
in Palestine, and no plows, but you see 
them scratching along with a forked stick 
drawn by a cow, or occasionally an un¬ 
dersized donkey; that is the nearest ap¬ 
proach to a lop-eared mule in Palestine. 
It is the finest country for good or¬ 
anges in the world. -The Jaffa orange is 
the best orange I have ever seen. It 
has been my privilege to eat those oranges 
right from the trees, but delicious as they 
are, give me Florida every time. I would 
not give a cpiarter section of Florida sand 
for a township in Palestine. When I 
stood in the hill country of Judea looking 
out over the valley of the Jordan and 
saw the mountains of Moab and Nebo’s 
lonely peak in all its glory, the idea oc¬ 
curred to me that the Lord was certainly 
good to Moses to let him die before he 
got into the land of Palestine. Perhaps 
it is not today what it was in the day 
of Moses. Today, it is a land of dirt, 
filth, ignorance and Turkish misrule, and 
nothing to commend it. Give me Florida 
every time. 
There is one other thing I want to 
bring before you. I think we too fre¬ 
quently neglect to live up to our oppor¬ 
tunities and to make the most of our 
immediate surroundings. We come up 
here to these meetings, resolving to do 
and be done. We come together, hop¬ 
ing to do ourselves and our occupation 
good, and we talk beautifully and make 
plans, and resolute—and then we go 
home and in a few weeks fall back into 
our lethargic, indifferent, indolent meth¬ 
ods, and our good resolutions are all for-. 
gotten. Now, if we could carry some of 
our enthusiasm home with us, if we 
would carry some of our resolutions home 
and act upon them, it would be better for 
us, it would be better for the business in 
which we are engaged, it would be bet¬ 
ter for the institution of which you, Mr. 
President, have spoken. Let us try to 
do it; let us realize that here in Florida 
we have opportunities such as are found 
in few countries of the world, certainly 
in very few states of the Union. Let us 
work with the determination to make the 
most of our opportunities. Let us do 
the best we can to further the interests 
of our Society and our great educational 
institution. 
I remember reading some time ago of 
a ship in the days of sailing vessels. The 
ship had met with contrary weather, and 
had been partly dismantled, driven from 
its course, and finally the water had given 
out. At last, when the crew was about 
to perish from thirst, a vessel was seen 
approaching. The captain of the dam¬ 
aged ship called through the trumpet, 
“Give us water,” and the answer came 
back, “Drop your buckets where you 
are!” They thought it a strange answer 
and repeated again, “Water! We per¬ 
ish ! Give 14s water.” Again the answer 
came back, “Drop your buckets where 
you are!” The third time they begged 
for water, and the third time the answer 
came back, “Drop your buckets where 
you are!” They finally thought there 
must be some reason for such an answer 
and dropped their buckets which came 
up filled and brimming with fresh, sweet 
water. They had been driven into the 
hundred-mile-wide mouth of the Amazon 
and did not know that they were sur¬ 
rounded with fresh water. 
Now, when we are perishing with a 
