In the Proceedings of the Florida Horticultural Society for 1912 there was published a paper by the writer entitled "Ornamental Plants of Dade County, Florida," giving some account of the native and exotic plants of the region which it covered. On account of the fact that no separates of this were printed an illustrated edition was published later which met with considerable favor from plant growers and lovers in general. The suggestion has frequently been made to the author that he write something more extended and the following pages are the result.

Florida, especially the southern part of it, is really so new that we know but little as to what we can or can not do in the matter of growing ornamental plants, or making and decorating homes within its borders. The writer has had over thirteen years of experience in cultivating plants in Dade County and four in Manatee County and yet he feels that he is not competent to teach. Many things that he once supposed he had learned he has later been compelled to unlearn, and every day new problems are coming up which must be solved, problems for which the books on gardening give no help whatever. This little work is written, then, more as a set of suggestions than of instructions. I said in my paper on Dade County plants that it was a sort of first aid, and the same remark may be applied to this.

We can scarcely form the faintest conception of the enormous number of useful and ornamental trees and plants from the warmer parts of the world which will grow within the limits of this state. The veteran botanist and explorer, Richard Spruce, who spent fifteen years in the equatorial regions of South America in search for new plants (1849-1864) in a letter to George Ben-tham says: - "I have lately been calculating the number of species that yet remain to be discovered in the great Amazonian forest, from the cataracts of the Orinoco to the mountains of Matto Grosso; taking the fact that by moving away a degree of latitude or longitude I found about half the plants different as a basis, and considering what very narrow strips we have up to this day actually explored, and that often very inadequately, by Humboldt, Martius, myself and others, there should still remain some 50,000 or even 80,000 species undiscovered".

That was in 1864, and only a few of these new things have since been introduced. Think, then, of the enormous number yet to come from the warmer regions of the earth, that will flourish here and help to beautify the gardens and homes of our state. Hundreds of new things are coming in every year and in many cases we receive almost no information with them. We learn nothing of their habitats, whether they are trees, shrubs or vines, nor anything of the treatment they need. Is it any wonder that much of our gardening is merely an experiment, that we lose a large number of our finest plants because we do not know how to give them proper treatment?

Indeed, for that matter, we scarcely know more of a great number of plants which are described in standard works on gardening and are offered for sale by nurserymen. The grower here must very often find these things out by his own, often bitter, experience. He constantly finds himself planting things in the wrong places, in improper soil, with wrong conditions of light and shade and moisture; what he gives them for fertilizer may be poison, and what he intends for the kindest treatment may ruin them. It will sometimes happen that he will have plants for years which do no good under various kinds of treatment that with something still different begin to flourish. Again and again I have tried plants under different conditions, losing one after another until I concluded they were not adapted and could not be grown here. Then, perhaps, I would see the same thing growing for others like the proverbial green bay tree, and after a trial under the right conditions it would succeed with me.

It seems to be reasonable, then, that if any one here has had any considerable experience in growing ornamentals in Florida his knowledge, his successes and failures must be of some value if given to others who have had little or no opportunities along such lines, but who want to grow plants. This little work is in no sense whatever a manual of gardening or an encyclopedia of plants. Any one who has an extensive collection, or who cultivates on a large scale, should by all means have one or more such works. Even the small grower will find it to his advantage to have some of these books which will help, at least, in identifying the things that are unknown to him. I have written this for Florida where our conditions are peculiar, and, as a general proposition, it would be of little value elsewhere. The plants of the warmer regions which are cultivated in the north are usually grown in rooms or glass houses, mostly with artificial heat, and they are often bedded out in the summer in the open ground. As a consequence they are usually dwarfed and do not have the vigor or attain the size that they do in Florida.

This work covers a somewhat wider field than mere ornamental gardening; it is intended to discuss in a general way the decoration and beautifying of homes and grounds in our territory. I have as far as possible endeavored to give some idea of the comparative hardiness or tenderness of the plants discussed. Those which I have mentioned as being suitable for cultivation in the extreme lower part of the state will generally be too tender to grow much north of that region. Usually, though not always, where it is stated that plants come from the tropics they are quite tender. Most things which are hardy in the northern part of Florida will flourish down two-thirds of the length of the state, but comparatively few of them will succeed at the extreme lower end of it.

In some cases it is quite probable that errors have been made in identifying species, as I have not had access to extensive libraries or herbaria. Many of the descriptions in the botanies and encyclopedias are so brief, so vague and misleading that it is absolutely impossible for any one with ordinary intelligence to make anything out of them. These descriptions, often containing not over fifteen or twenty words, are as dry as the moral law, appearing as though their author had put his data into a hopper, turned the crank and ground the thing out, there being no remarks or comparison with other species. Even expert botanists with whom I have worked complain that they can make out nothing with certainty from such descriptions.

It is quite probable that the matter of this little work will be found to be rather fragmentary and disjointed as it has been written, for the most part, a few minutes at a time during rests from the work of hoeing, wheeling muck, digging and attending to my garden.

My experience in gardening in Florida is confined to the lower part of the peninsula. In order to form some idea of what could and what could not be grown in different parts of the state I sent lists of plants to several growers of large experience in various places, asking them to mark such as had succeeded or failed and to give other data, also to add additional species to the lists and their knowledge of how they had done. Mr. Frank MacLaren of Fernandina, Mr. John Schnabel of Gainesville, Mr. C. E. Pleas of Chipley, Mr. E. N. Reasoner of the Royal Palm Nursery at Oneco, Prof. H. Nehrling of Gotha and Mrs. Marian McAdow of Punta Gorda have rendered the greatest assistance in this way. I have visited a large number of places scattered throughout the state and made notes on the cultivated ornamentals and asked questions. Mr. Charles Mosier of Little River has given me great help on the chapter on insects and plant diseases.

I am indebted to Mr. Charles Deering who is developing a wonderful garden here, to Mr. David Fairchild and Mr. Wilson Popenoe of the United States Department of Agriculture, and to Mr. Paul Popenoe of the American Genetic Association, for great and repeated favors and help in getting up this little work.

The American Photograph Company of Havana, Cuba, has kindly permitted me to use the picture of the Cuban highway, the splendid group of royal palms, and the great bamboos overlooking the water.

The chapters "In The Hammock" and "A Midsummer Morning at The Sentinels" were published in the Tropic Magazine. While they do not strictly pertain to gardening they set forth the beauties of an ornamental home in Florida.

There are 100,000,000 people in the United States today, and this number may be doubled within the lifetime of many of those who will read this little treatise. The wealth of the country is increasing at a remarkably rapid rate. A constantly augmenting number of people are coming to Florida each year to spend their winters or to make permanent homes. It is becoming a rich man's playground, a land of attractive winter homes for people in moderate circumstances and a refuge for thousands who are suffering from various ills of the flesh. I can look forward with full confidence to a time in the near future when a large area within the territory covered in this work will be girdled with the finest of roads bordered with beautiful tropical and semi-tropical shade trees; I can see the land filled with happy homes shaded and embowered with the glorious vegetation of the equatorial regions, a land of peace and contentment, a land of hope, of rest for the weary, a land of perennial verdure and fadeless beauty.