FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
57 
hearings the Committee has a much better 
opportunity to question the men who ap¬ 
pear before it and determine the merit or 
demerit of the appropriation asked for. 
Then if it is reported favorably and 
unanimously it is very rare that the bill is 
not passed; if it is reported unfavorably, 
it is very rare that the bill passes. 
This has been reported favorably by 
both these committees, but we have been 
told, in fact it has been published in the 
press, that certain people, one man espec¬ 
ially, propose to fight it. He says he will 
fight the fight of his life. 
We hope he will survive, because I be¬ 
lieve, as the Committee believes, that this 
Legislature of ours cannot fail to pass a 
measure of this kind. 
They claim that West Florida would 
receive no benefit, and that does seem to 
me the most absurd claim a man could 
advance. When I read that, I thought 
what a good thing it was a man could 
not grow to be the size of Florida. If he 
were to cut off his thumb, his right foot 
might object to carrying his body in the 
direction of a physician because it had not 
been damaged or hurt in any way. But 
if gangrene set in because of lack of prop¬ 
er attention to the thumb, and the man 
died, perhaps the right foot might think 
it was concerned in the injury to the 
thumb after all. 
We feel that a resolution from this 
Society is distinctly in order. (Reads 
resolution). 
Whereas : The citrus growers of Flori¬ 
da have for the past two years, in con¬ 
junction with the Federal Government, 
been waging a desperate fight with citrus 
canker—the worst pest and the greatest 
menace to the industry ever known in its 
history, and, 
Whereas : the citrus growers of Florida 
have advanced out of their individual 
pockets more than $200,000—have sus¬ 
tained a loss of at least a million dollars 
in healthy trees destroyed that the bal¬ 
ance of their groves and those of their 
neighbors might be protected, and, before 
the fight is ended and citrus canker finally 
exterminated will be called upon for a 
still further sacrifice of at least a like 
amount, and 
Whereas: The Federal Government, 
realizing that it was beyond the power of 
the States in which the disease exists to 
supply the funds necessary for eradica¬ 
tion, did appropriate the sum of $550,000, 
to be divided proportionately among said 
States; said money to be expended by 
and under the supervision of the Plant 
Boards, which sum was supplemented by 
an appropriation by the State of Florida 
of $125,000, all of which was expended 
but the enemy was still unsubdued, and 
Whereas: Another pilgrimage was 
made to Washington by the Committee 
having this work in charge and another 
appeal for help was introduced with the 
result that $180,000 was secured for im¬ 
mediate use, which would probably carry 
the work as at present organized until 
July, and an additional $300,000 contin¬ 
gent on the Legislature of the State of 
Florida appropriating a like amount, and, 
Whereas, A Bill has been introduced 
in the Legislature, now in session, asking 
for State Aid for $300,000 in order to 
secure a like amount from the govern¬ 
ment, which is waiting for us as soon as 
