FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
175 
it takes practically two days to irrigate 
ten acres; so I calculate that to irri¬ 
gate ten acres costs— 
My time nothing.$ ... 
One man. 3.00 
Gasoline . 10.00 
Incidentals, such as oil, washers, 
waste .60 
Total .$13.60 
This does not include wear and tear on 
machinery. 
When irrigating in hot weather we 
start our engine up as soon as it is 
light enough to see, and run it five 
hours; then we start up again in the 
afternoon at three and run until seven. 
The first year we irrigated we ran the 
engine steadily from daylight until 
dark; but I became convinced that it 
was not a good plan to throw water 
into the grove in the heat of the day. 
Of course, it would be much better to 
irrigate at night rather than the day, 
but this is not practical, as I have yet 
to find men who will drag hose around 
through the grove in the dark. 
Some say it is a question whether 
or not irrigation pays. All I can say 
is that our trees look well and we seem 
to get a pretty fair crop of fruit each 
year. 
By J. W. Hoard. 
Mr. President , Ladies and Gentlemen: 
To the tourist or winter visitor, 
Florida presents a most beautiful pic¬ 
ture or panoramic view of flowers and 
sunshine; of magnificent and extensive 
evergreen forests, dotted here and 
there by beautiful lakes whose waters 
are as clear as crystal, and as pure and 
sparkling as the morning dew. He 
is delighted with our glorious climate, 
our orange groves laden with their 
golden fruit, and our truck farms em¬ 
bracing broad acres of growing veg¬ 
etables. He is impressed by the scenes 
of nervous activity and evidences of 
enterprise and prosperity on every 
hand, and especially in and around our 
packing houses during the shipping 
season. He hears and reads of vast 
sums of money being made by the fruit 
and vegetable growers in various parts 
of the state. He is delighted with all 
he sees or hears, and, in fact, it seems 
to him that Nature has almost ex¬ 
hausted her resources in making of 
Florida a veritable horticulturists’ 
paradise, leaving nothing to be desired 
which could in any way contribute to 
his happiness or success. And from 
his standpoint the tourist is right in 
his conclusions. Florida is a grand 
state, possessing many natural advan¬ 
tages and horticultural possibilities for 
which we hereby express our thanks 
and gratitude to the One from whom 
all such blessings must come. We all 
love our Florida and appreciate her 
many natural advantages and also 
those which have been brought about 
by the efforts of her enterprising citiz¬ 
ens ; and our hearts are bound to her 
by invisible and mysterious ties which 
we cannot possibly understand nor ex¬ 
plain and which grow stronger as the 
years go by. 
But, at the same time, those of us 
