FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
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frozen to the ground. Only in that way 
can you appreciate the value of the citrus 
properties. 
I have some pictures of properties in 
this state taken on the 10th of March. 
I show these, not in a spirit of braggado¬ 
cio, but I would like to have you gentle¬ 
men see the photos of these properties 
and then decide whether or not you can 
class all citrus land under one head, or 
each locality under one basis of valua¬ 
tion. Thank you. (Applause.) 
Mr. Hume: We have with us Capt. 
Smith of the Farm Loan Commission, 
who is going to address us now. 
Mr. Smith: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and 
Gentlemen: I question very much when 
those gentlemen in Washington per¬ 
fected and put through the Farm Loan 
Act, whether they realized the work that 
was necessary to put it into effect. You 
know we have very little to go by in this 
country to guide us. Those countries 
that already have a Farm Loan system 
are, comparatively speaking, small coun¬ 
tries ; many of them no larger than our 
states, and to attempt in this country to 
bring into active operation an act that 
would work from the Canadian border to 
the Gulf, and from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, is a huge task. 
I did not come down here to talk, I 
came down here to listen. 
We have just heard this gentleman 
speak of the citrus problems, that is one 
of the fruit troubles. But you must re¬ 
alize one thing, and that is that the atti¬ 
tude of the Board in Washington is to 
help the farmer, and if there is any pos¬ 
sible way to help them, we must do it. 
But there are two sides to be consid¬ 
ered; there is, first, the man who wants 
to borrow the money, and there is the se¬ 
curity, on the other side. 
There is a wrong impression in many 
parts of this country, that is that this 
money is “easy money.” Now, to put 
the thing in plain language, it means this: 
that where a man has good title to pro¬ 
ductive property, to be mortgaged as se¬ 
curity, he can borrow a sum equal to one- 
half of the value put upon his property 
by the appraisers. It is just as well to 
be perfectly plain with the whole mat¬ 
ter, and I have been particularly anxious 
to come through Florida and see what 
your problems are and see if there is any 
way to help you out of the difficulty you 
are in. 
We have today on file about $175,- 
000.000 worth of applications on hand 
for farm loans. We have already loaned 
in the State of Kansas, and we hope 
shortly to be lending in this district here. 
There are very few people who realize 
the different problems that are going to 
come up from time to time, and in many 
cases it will be impossible to form any 
rules that will be applicable to all the dis¬ 
tricts ; they will all have to be handled sep¬ 
arately. 
But we must keep in mind one thing; 
that each one of those banks, the other 
eleven, are responsible for what each 
bank does. This does not mean that the 
other banks are going to carry along a 
weak system. But it means every loan is 
going to be made on its own bottom. 
You must realize the government is not 
lending money on the Farm Loan Bank 
basis; it has temporarily put in $9,000,- 
000, which we have to pay back, and after 
