172 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
abled us to combat them until they are 
minor troubles. Do you think it wise to 
put a law upon the statute books describ¬ 
ing all these different diseases and insects 
and laws regulating their control, or is 
it best to place the authority in the hands 
of a responsible body of five men, to make 
rules and regulations which will cover 
the different troubles which will come up 
from time to time, and before which a 
committee from this Society, or any other 
body could go and stand more chance of 
getting a reasonable ruling than you could 
before a legislature of 150 men, more 
than ninety per cent of whom have no in¬ 
terest in horticulture ? They do not un¬ 
derstand the insect pests, or diseases, or 
methods of control. It is my honest opin¬ 
ion that we should leave it in the hands 
of the Board of Control to make these 
regulations. They will have expert data 
at their command who can give them the 
proper advice, and the matter will be 
taken out of politics. They will be ac¬ 
cessible to a committee which might be 
appointed from this Society or from the 
nurserymen. 
I think that the remarks of Mr. Gil¬ 
lette have been misconstrued. It is not 
that the nurserymen fear prosecution on 
account of sending out some variety that 
may not be true to name, but the fear 
that we are not going to get a law, that 
moves us to action. 
Mr. Stewart: There was a committee 
appointed by this body. I would ask if 
this committee of nurserymen submitted 
their bill to this committee or invited 
them to assist them in preparing their bill 
which, in a way, is a substitute for the 
bill submitted by the Society’s committee. 
Mr. Grifffng: The nurserymen acted 
independently entirely, and prepared the 
bill and had it presented. 
Mr. Stewart: Did they consider or re¬ 
port to the committee of the Society? 
Mr. Griffing: We did not have time. 
Time is a vital feature in getting a bill 
through the legislature. It is very doubt¬ 
ful now if we get the bill through much 
before the close of the legislature. The 
bill is of but little interest to the majority 
of the legislators, and bills of that kind 
move slowly. It is very easy to sidetrack 
them and adjourn before the measure is 
reached. Furthermore, the nurserymen 
were working as nurserymen, and we 
did not know what we could do with the 
committee if we went to them, and if we 
delayed until this meeting before we 
brought this matter up, the chances are 
we would not get the bill up to Talla¬ 
hassee in time to get it through. 
Mr. Stewart: As I understand it, the 
method of procedure is to go before a 
committee of five—that is, the Board of 
Control, and get rules adopted by them. 
They become a kind of executive board to 
make rules and adopt laws for the regu¬ 
lation of the diseases, etc. The law is 
passed and referred to the Board of Con¬ 
trol to make rules and regulations. That 
would be an act of the legislators, to cre¬ 
ate the law. 
Mr. Griffing: Certainly, the legisla¬ 
ture would pass a law giving them the 
authority. Has not the legislature the 
right to place matters of this kind under 
the supervision of others besides the leg¬ 
islature? Of course, the law must be 
made in the first place by the legislature. 
We do not mean that the Bord of Control 
will have the right to make laws; we 
know that they cannot do that, but they 
