ARBOR DAY PROCLAMATION.

STATE OF FLORIDA

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT

To the People of Florida 

The experience of many of the States has demonstrated the great benefits which may result from publicly directing attention to the planting of trees, not only such as are useful for their wood or fruit, but such as tend to add to the healthfulness and comfort of our people and to the beauty of our State by ornamenting and adorning our streets and public parks, our church and school grounds, our homes and the last resting places of our dead.

In no State can there be successfully grown a greater variety of useful and ornamental trees than in Florida; and by no other means with the same outlay of money and labor can we so increase the attractiveness of our favored land as by utilizing these rich and beautiful ornaments of nature to adorn and embellish our homes and public grounds. To that end, I, EDWARD A. PERRY, Governor of the State of Florida, do issue this Proclamation and set apart WEDNESDAY, the TENTH DAY OF FEBRUARY, A.D. 1886, as ARBOR DAY IN FLORIDA,

And I earnestly invoke attention to Florida's capabilities for the growing of valuable woods, some of which peculiar to our State, and now rarely found, as well as many fruit and nut bearers, might well compensate for the care necessary to a greatly increased production.

I respectfully recommend that a special interest be taken in the planting of tree for the ornamentation of our public places, and suggest that the officers and teachers of our Public Schools can, by giving their scholars a holiday to be devoted to the adornment of their school grounds with trees and shrubberies, under intelligent and appropriate instructions, make that the most profitable day of the year to their present pupils, as well as to those who shall succeed them, and to the state.

In Testimony Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and have caused the Great Seal of the State of Florida to be affixed hereto. Done at the Capital this the Second Day of January, A.D. 1886, and of the Independence of the United States the One Hundred and Tenth Year.

E.A. PERRY.

BY THE GOVERNOR-- ATTEST:

JNO. L. CRAWFORD