FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
21 
THE RELATION OF THE UNIVERSITY TO THE HORTICUL¬ 
TURAL SOCIETY. 
Dr. Andrew Sledd. 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
I wish respectfully to endorse and sec¬ 
ond the words of welcome which the 
Mayor has extended to your body, in 
behalf of your State University. We 
are very glad indeed to have you in our 
city, and esteem it a privilege and honor, 
and trust you will feel that whatever we 
have out there; whatever of buildings, 
or faculty, or service, is entirely at your 
disposal. We hope to have the privi¬ 
lege of having you out an afternoon and 
evening. On that occasion we wish you 
to take possession of the buildings and 
grounds, and we would like for you to go 
to and fro and see what is there so that 
you may know what we are trying to do 
in the cause of education. 
I shall probably not be able to enjoy 
the Association on that occasion, by rea¬ 
son of the fact that I have had an en¬ 
gagement out of the city for some months, 
but Prof. Rolfs will show you every cour¬ 
tesy and more than take my place, I am 
sure. 
Now, like the Irishman who wanted to 
make a few remarks before he said any¬ 
thing, I address myself directly to the 
matter of The Relation of the University 
to the Horticultural Society. I will not 
presume in the presence of these experts 
who are versed in technical knowledge, 
to enter into any arguments or discus¬ 
sions of a technical nature. I know very 
little about technical horticulture; but I 
address myself to you as citizens of the 
State, feeling that you are citizens before 
you are horticulturists. I feel that you 
are horticulturists as an incident, but that 
your citizenship is your chief work and 
one of the highest interests in your life. 
Therefore, I think I can speak to you as 
citizens first and then horticulturists. 
Agricultural interests, including in 
them horticultural interests, are the great¬ 
est single interests in the nation. Re¬ 
cently I have been looking over some of 
our agricultural statistics, and find that 
the amount of money that we get out of 
the ground through crops and fruits will 
amount to the amazing sum of over $6,- 
500,000,000.00; that our corn crop for 
one year would more than pay the na¬ 
tional debt, and would sustain the na¬ 
tional government for two years or more, 
paying all of its expenses. The vast ma¬ 
jority of our people are directly or indi¬ 
rectly dependent upon agricultural inter¬ 
ests. Not counting the non-productive 
elements of the population, such as chil¬ 
dren under ten years of age and matrons 
in the home, there are 30,000,000 of peo¬ 
ple in the United States engaged in gain¬ 
ful occupations. Of that number, nearly 
forty per cent, are engaged in horticul¬ 
tural and agricultural pursuits. This 
does not include their dependents. In our 
own state, forty-four per cent, of our 
working population is engaged in agricul¬ 
tural pursuits; by far the largest propor¬ 
tion engaged in any one line or calling 
in the state. 
Gigantic as are the interests involved, 
