FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
137 
We must have the actuality of security 
outside of the moral risk, you see. 
Mr. Brown: Isn’t the moral risk on 
groves in Florida, as good as on Illinois 
farms ? 
Mr. Smith: Certainly. But I would 
say in regard to Illinois farms. It is 
valued at $300.00 an acre. We have no 
intention of loaning $150.00 per acre. 
You understand, I am not talking about 
Florida in particular, I am talking about 
the system all over the country. 
That is all I am going to say this morn¬ 
ing. 
Mr. Hume: I will ask Prof. Rolfs to 
continue this discussion. 
Mr. Rolfs: Mr. President, Members 
of the Farm Loan Bank and Ladies and 
Gentlemen: 
Mr. Gillett, in addressing you on this 
subject, mentioned the matter of a dis¬ 
aster that is upon us at the present time; 
that is, the freeze. 
We hear it stated over and over again 
in the papers; also we hear it stated that 
Florida has had a freeze and the citrus 
industry is wiped off the map. I have 
lived a long time and seen the citrus in¬ 
dustry wiped off the map, figuratively 
speaking, many times. Put it down now, 
that when a man talks about the citrus in¬ 
dustry being wiped off the map through a 
freeze in Florida, he has been misin¬ 
formed. 
There certainly could not be a worse 
freeze than we had in 94-95- So long as 
the records of thermometers have been 
kept in Florida, there is no other instance 
where the conditions were so disastrous, 
and yet, gentlemen of the Board, the citrus 
groves rocked through the storm; in a 
short time we had a splendid production 
again of citrus fruits. 
Further than that, Florida has had 
freezes before, in ’58 we had a freeze, in 
’37 we had a freeze, and when we began 
to look through the state for stock upon 
which to bud groves, we found on the 
shores of Lake George, some old citrus 
trees, and cutting those off and looking at 
the rings, we found that stock was grow¬ 
ing before ’58, and the sprouts growing 
from it were younger than ’58. I may 
mention that to show the extreme longev¬ 
ity of the citrus tree root, its persistence. 
I know of no other tree comparable to the 
citrus tree in this respect except the olive 
and we do not grow olives in Florida, so 
we cannot make a comparison with that. 
But the citrus tree stock is very long 
lived. That we proved by the trees in the 
woods which were frozen down before the 
state was inhabited by the present gener¬ 
ation, or the white race, possibly. 
We have had experience in ’94-’95 
where the trees were frozen to the ground 
and in the fall of ’99, you will remember 
what a splendid crop we had. The crop 
was marketed and brought a good price, 
showing that there was a very rapid and 
quick recuperation of the industry on a 
large scale. 
We should not for a moment, however, 
consider that a citrus tree planted in any 
place and cared for in an indifferent way, 
may be frozen down and recuperate im¬ 
mediately. We must take into consider¬ 
ation the local conditions concerning those 
trees, and yet when a citrus tree is planted 
on the proper citrus soil, the root may 
be neglected for as long as eighteen or 
twenty years, without disastrous effects. 
