70 TEQUESTA


ground floor, to read in his extensive library, and to write. In addition,
on September 5, 1914, Simpson received a letter from P. H. Dorsett,
Acting Agricultural Explorer in Charge, Foreign Seed and Plant In-
troduction, U.S. Department of Agriculture, appointing him as a
'Collaborator,' at three hundred dollars per annum (a post he held
until June 1932). Simpson served as a consultant, conducted experi-
mental planting at the Sentinels, and allowed for the use of his li-
brary.38 He continued to write, although he realized little revenue
from it. Simpson wrote in 1924, "I believe I could make more money
stealing than writing for a living." About his first Florida book, Or-
namental Gardening in Florida, he complained that "the publishers
did not deal fairly with me and tried to cheat and dodge in every way.
Don't give any work to Little and Ives is my advice."39
 Simpson got his start as a South Florida nature writer when he was
asked by Dr. Henry Nehrling to prepare articles for the Florida Horticultural
Society.40 His first essay concerned Dade County plants, which at-
tracted the attention of David Fairchild and James Deering's brother,
Charles, a strong naturalist. The article, entitled "Native and Exotic
Plants of Dade County, Florida," included photographs, and it was
distributed as a guide for plant growers in the area. That, as Simpson
explained, "got my feet into it."4' Then came his first South Florida
book, Ornamental Gardening in Florida, dedicated to Charles
Deering, "who, instead of destroying the hammock, is creating it,"
and subtitled A Treatise on the Decorative Plants Adapted to
Florida and Their Cultivation, with Suggestions for the Orna-
mentation of Florida Homes and Grounds. Several of the chapters
had already appeared in Tropic Magazine, which began publishing
in Miami in 1914. Simpson became a regular contributor.
 In his introduction to Ornamental Gardening in Florida, Simpson,
with uncharacteristic optimism in such matters, wrote:


 I can look forward with full confidence to a time in the near fu-
 ture when a large area within the territory covered in this work
 will be girded 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 con-
 tentment, a land of hope, of rest for the weary, a land of peren-
 nial verdure and fadeless beauty.42