FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
'al investigation only, and the work that 
Mr. Bartlett wants done and that we all 
want to do, is classified as Farmers’ In¬ 
stitute work and demonstration work; in 
other words, putting into practice well 
known principles, and where principles 
are well known, the money received from 
Congress cannot properly be used. How¬ 
ever, the experiment station staff once in 
a while, if it is possible to slip out to 
some of these farmers’ gatherings, are 
very glad to do so. When a body of 
* local agriculturists get together aridi say 
that they will pay our expenses, we are 
very willing to go out and give therni our 
time. But we cannot justly charge ex¬ 
penses for work of this kind to the funds 
mentioned. The Federal Government is 
this year expending something like $6o,- 
ooo for agricultural work in the State of 
Florida; that is, investigation work. You 
are perhaps surprised at the amount. 
There is the Hatch Fund, the Adams 
Fund, a Subtropical Laboratory Fund 
and the white fly appropriation, in addi¬ 
tion to the local demonstrations arid) ex¬ 
periments. 
You will see where Mr. Tenny and Mr. 
Powell and men of this stamp are costing 
117 
the Federal Government a great deal, and 
you will see how much the Federal Gov¬ 
ernment does and how little the State 
does. Consequently, the federal officers 
have the right to feel a little discouraged. 
The people at Tallahassee are contem¬ 
plating an appropriation to give to the 
experiment station a home. I suppose 
there is nothing more important than a 
home. We have had none up to the 
present time. This bill proposes about 
$30,000 to^ be expended for the buildings 
and $5,000 annually for Farmers’ Insti¬ 
tutes. 
Mr. Skinner—I was at Tallahassee sev¬ 
eral years ago when one of the bills came 
up that the Society recommended. The 
difficulty seems to be that the Horticul¬ 
tural Society seems to be identified with 
the orange industry. The state of Flori¬ 
da is much larger than the orange indus¬ 
try. If you miake the people in each part 
of the State think that they are to be 
benefited by the passing of a bill, it is 
pretty likely to go through. They are 
willing to pass any bill that does not call 
for money. Let them all see that it is a 
benefit to the state, arid) I think there will 
be no trouble. 
Japanese Matting Industry for America. 
Prof. Rolfs—I understand that the 
office of the Seed and Plant Introduction 
is now looking for a place to plant the 
Japanese matting rush, and we have their 
agent with us this morning. Probably 
you will be as interested as I am in this 
matter, and I will be glad if Mr. Tull 
will give us a few remarks. 
Mr. Tull—The matting industry in 
America so far is very young; it is still 
in its infancy. This is an entirely new 
thing in America and the office of Seed 
arid) Plant Iritroduction under the Bureau 
of Plant Industry has recently taken it up. 
The growing of this grass was tried by 
private individuals but they made a fail¬ 
ure. They succeeded in getting machin¬ 
ery, but could ndt get raw material. They 
went to China and Japan and finally se¬ 
cured a number of plants and sent them 
