154 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
taken is that of making bud selection 
studies and establishing a bud supply or¬ 
chard of the best strains of standard Flor¬ 
ida varieties. 
A co-operative agreement was entered 
into on October 26, 1921, between the Bu¬ 
reau of Plant Industry, U. S. Department 
of Agriculture, and the Experiment Sta¬ 
tion, whereby the bureau is to furnish 
stocks and buds from selected bearing 
trees in Florida and supervise the work 
of propagation, record-keeping, etc., while 
the Experiment Station is to furnish the 
land, fertilizer and cultivation. Five hun¬ 
dred rough lemon stocks have been plant¬ 
ed in grove formation and these will be 
budded shortly with buds from the best 
typed and producing trees of Parson 
Brown, Homosassa, Pineapple, Valencia 
and Lue Gim Gong varieties. In fact, 
Mr. T. Ralph Robinson of the bureau has 
spent a large part of his time during the 
past crop season in locating the best trees 
of these varieties in Florida and in secur¬ 
ing the budwood from them. We will, 
therefore, have under observation approx¬ 
imately fifty progenies of ten trees each: 
that is, ten trees propagated from each of 
fifty of the best trees that can be found in 
the State. In addition to securing data 
on the behavior of these trees we hope to 
make this the beginning of what will 
eventually be a progeny bud-supply or¬ 
chard, an orchard from which we can sup¬ 
ply to growers for top-working and to 
nurserymen for commercial propagation 
budwood of the best strains of the stand¬ 
ard varieties. 
Probably no line of experimental work 
is so promising of financial returns to the 
citrus industry of Florida. Increased 
acre-production, a better and more uni¬ 
form type of fruit of each standard va¬ 
riety and a general standardization of the 
Florida citrus product are all benefits 
which may be expected to follow the 
steady prosecution of this work upon a 
sufficiently ample scale. 
Our co-operative agreement with the 
Bureau of Plant Industry also calls for the 
establishment of a demonstration orchard 
of different strains selected from commer¬ 
cial citrus—to show the results obtained 
by proper bud selection—and plantings 
devoted to the testing of new citrus va¬ 
rieties and hybrids, as well as a collection 
of wild citrus plants and relatives of cit¬ 
rus as material for study and experimen¬ 
tation. However, these plantings cannot 
be made until we clear more land and this 
we cannot do until we secure an appropri¬ 
ation for this station. 
The citrus industry of Florida has been 
builded, for the most part, upon the trials, 
mistakes and losses of individual growers. 
The fact that it has succeeded is but am¬ 
ple evidence that with the benefit and 
guidance of scientific data upon its most 
essential problems it will become a far 
greater and far more profitable industry 
than it is today. 
