62 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
ploy an Adviser, and they communicat¬ 
ed with me, and the result was that I 
entered their employ for two years’ 
time. 
Of course, in this organization to get 
it systematized, we have it working un¬ 
der various heads, or committees; for 
instance, we have a Committee on Farm¬ 
ing, a Committee on Poultry, a Commit¬ 
tee on Dairying, one on Horticulture, 
one on Education, one on Good Roads; 
I believe in all there are eight different 
committees, through which the Agricul¬ 
tural Adviser is supposed to work. We 
have these committees assemble. They 
are men chosen from all over the county 
who have been successful in that partic¬ 
ular line of endeavor; men who have a 
good, practical working knowledge, and 
some of them a good deal of scientific 
knowledge on these subjects. 
We assemble these committees and dis¬ 
cuss this particular point of the agricul¬ 
tural welfare of the county, and in this 
wise we are trying to diffuse knowledge 
on these subjects. 
I am supposed to be traveling all the 
time looking after the interest of the 
farmers and fruit growers and vegetable 
growers. I am to make as many calls 
in that county as I can. I must also sus¬ 
tain an office, and this office is in the 
court house at the county seat; that is 
a part of the agreement, that the office 
must be in the court house and subject 
to the command of everybody in the 
county. I do not know whether they 
make any difference to those who are 
members of the Association, or not. 
When I went to the county, I proceed¬ 
ed immediately to work; the people fur¬ 
nished me with a conveyance, and put 
me on the road, and I am busy six days 
in the week; if it were not that it is so 
much against my religion I am afraid 
I would work on Sundays, I get so bad¬ 
ly behind. 
Particularly, we are looking after the 
improvement of the crops. We want to 
carry on in that county demonstration 
work. We have had operating in the 
State before farm demonstration work. 
We are carrying on in Lake County now, 
demonstration plots throughout the coun¬ 
ty where the farmer tries out different 
methods of dealing with soils. I fre¬ 
quently quote this agricultural axiom: 
“If you will get the sourness out of your 
land, it wdll help get the sourness out of 
your disposition.” 
This difficulty I find in the soil with the 
aid of litmus paper. When I find it I 
advise the use of lime. Then I advise 
different methods in the preparation of 
seed beds, in tilling the soil and other 
things, and I have found a number of 
farmers willing to take my advice on this 
score. We expect in the fall to make a 
report of our demonstration to see what 
results we can get in this particular way. 
You have heard the old adage, “Fill 
your ground with humus, and you will 
fill your barn with grain.” I find in 
Florida there has been too much burn¬ 
ing up and burning out of the humus 
from the land. On that point we are 
doing a good deal toward changing the 
methods. This morning, I was interested 
when you were discussing the matter 
relative to culture of citrus groves. I 
have had all those questions put to me, 
