160' SECRETARY'S CORNER. 



• 

 admirer. We settled at Harbor View about five years ajgo, and at 

 that time Judge DeCoster lived about a half mile from us, and had 

 a yard of about an acre in extent surrounding his house that was 

 literally swamped in with to him (and neighbors) an unknown 

 plant, from two to eight feet high. He said he had been on the 

 place some thirty years — but did not know when or how the plant 

 get there. I sent a plant in bloom to the Division of Botany at 

 Washington. They said it was Senna coffee and not poisonous — 

 but lacked the alkaloid principle found in common coffee. I have 

 drank it now about three months— hoping it might act as an anti- 

 dote to malaria, that I had been troubled with — but can't say much 

 yet about that, only that I have been free from it ever since. I 

 prefer it to Java coffee — because it is not stimulating— and I can 

 drink it as I would so much water, without fear of bad results. But 

 to me its principal importance consists in its great value as a nitro- 

 genous plant. DeCoster gets double the fruit where his trees are 

 crowded with this plant. I have sown an acre with it— in my 

 orchard, and shall not plow or cultivate to disturb this old friend. 

 It is an annual, and I have it in bearing, and will inclose a trifle of 

 seed for you to test and report on." 



A. W. SiAS, Harbor View, Fla." 



Legislation in Progress April 5.— 1. Our printing appropri- 

 ation. The bill providing for this passed the house a few days 

 since without an o pposing vote,but was cut down to 3,000 volumes per 

 annum. This change will not cripple our work, as at present con- 

 ducted. The bill is in the senate now on general orders. That 

 body has a long list ahead of this, and the end of the session is not 

 far off. 



2. The San Jose Scale bill. Shorn of its bond and license features 

 it was reported by the forestry committee and is on "general 

 orders" in the house. With a still further radical amendment, 

 which is assured, we understand, there is some prospect it may pass 

 the house and take its chances in the senate with a host of other 

 measures on the closing days of the session. As amended it will 

 permit but not oblige nurseries to be inspected; will require nur- 

 sery stock coming into the state to have been inspected; no certifi- 

 cate will be required to ship nursery stock by rail; the state inspec- 

 tor may adopt necessary measures to destroy the insect wherever 

 found; fines are provided for violation of the law. In this form the 

 law will seek to keep the insect out of the state and kill it if found 

 w^ithin. 



Later. — This bill has been killed in the house. 



3. The forest reserve lavr. It has passed the house and is in com- 

 mittee in the senate with fair prospects of passage. As this bill 

 creates a "Forestry Board," an appropriation is made in connection 

 with it instead of the usual one to the Forestry Association, as we 

 understand. The bill is almost verbatim as printed in our report 

 of two years since, except that it provides no future income for the 

 heirs of donors of forests to the state from the sale of the products 

 of the land — as the writer remembers it. 



