In the following chapter are given a few press notices of Mr. Plant and his work in the South, because they contain reliable information of some of that work which we have left to them to chronicle, and because they are public expressions of the appreciation of that work and of the justly high esteem, and friendly regard in which the worker is held by the people among whom and for whom he has spent the best part of his life. Instead of a brief chapter, a volume of such complimentary sketches might be presented, written in even stronger language than is here used and by masters in the art of writing. But these few will suffice to show the deep interest of the people in the life and work of their friend and benefactor, Mr. H. B. Plant. The following extract is taken from the _Florida_ number of _Descriptive America_. RAILROAD AND EXPRESS PRESIDENT. “In our _Wisconsin_ number we gave the life-history of one man who, beginning as a farmer’s son, had, by his energy, ability, and integrity, come to occupy a position of great power, wealth, and usefulness, and we emphasized the point, that, while he had been wonderfully successful, his highest claim to our admiration, lay in the fact that, whenever the opportunity offered, he had sought the prosperity of the nation, the state, or the city of his adoption, and had made his own gain and increasing wealth subordinate to the public weal. In this number we have some similar characters, who, if their wealth does not equal that of the great banker and railroad king, have at least followed his good example. “Such men are always modest, their achievements seem to them very small, compared with what they might and should have done, and they shrink from publicity with genuine dread. One of these men is the subject of our present sketch, Mr. H. B. Plant. “Mr. Plant is of pure Puritan stock; his earliest American ancestors left England about 1640, and if they were not among the little company who came with John Davenport to Quinnipiac, afterward called New Haven, they followed very soon after. They settled in Branford, Connecticut, a town lying between New Haven and Guilford, at which place some of Davenport’s most eminent men soon established themselves. The Plants of Branford were a good family, and they have always borne a high reputation through the eight or nine generations which have elapsed since they first established themselves in Branford. They were intelligent, thoughtful farmers, industrious, sound thinkers, orthodox in faith, and leading those quiet country lives, of which the old New England towns presented so many examples. The village minister was a man greatly reverenced by all his people, and if a youth of more than ordinary promise could be instructed under his direction, it was something to be proud of.