FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
215 
amendment providing for a bond issue 
of fifty million dollars available at the 
rate of five million a year, all for good 
roads. 
The New York farmer, strange to re¬ 
late, did not share his New Jersey 
brother’s enthusiasm for good roads at 
first, but now he has fallen into line and 
goes one better in that the state does more 
for this purpose than any of the others. 
Let us look at our own state and see 
the paltry efforts the farmers are making 
for good roads and compare it to those 
mentioned, and yet we could make good 
roads at less cost than any of those. The 
Middle West is setting the pace in this 
direction. The Indiana agricultural or¬ 
ganizations have been the means of get¬ 
ting that state to lead all others, as thirty- 
five per cent, of the entire roads of the 
state are hard roads. Ohio comes next 
with thirty-three per cent.., Wisconsin 
seventeen, Kentucky sixteen, Michigan 
ten, Illinois eight, Missouri two, Iowa 
one and seven-tenths, and Mississippi 
0.38. Where is Florida? Too low to be 
figured out. I hope the day is not far 
distant when we can also make a show¬ 
ing in this direction. 
The Highway Commission of Illinois 
has been collecting some very valuable 
data on the benefits of good roads versus 
mud roads. Travel is uniform all the 
year round on good roads, while mud 
roads show a falling off of at least three- 
fourths during February, March and 
April, showing fully that the economic 
benefits of good roads are not fully un¬ 
derstood by the ordinary individual. 
The need of the hour is the road- 
builder and our agricultural organization 
more than any other must be in the lead 
to get him here as soon as possible. 
“The schoolmaster and good roads are 
o 
the most important agencies to advance 
civilization,” declared a great statesman 
in the U. S. Senate years ago. The 
schoolmaster is in evidence and doing 
good work; but where are our good 
roads? Now, let us, as an organization 
of horticulturists representing the best in 
the state in our particular line, lend our 
aid to hasten this good movement for the 
common highways of our country are the 
veins of commerce and civilization, and 
the greatest need of our day is good 
roads. This question outweighs the 
Panama Canal or the irrigation of the 
arid West. The world’s food supply 
passes on wagons over our country roads 
and that tells the story in a sentence. 
Any interruption of traffic upon our 
roads affects market conditions. The fact 
of the matter is that prices of farm pro¬ 
ducts have depended more on road con¬ 
ditions than anything else. In the great 
grain-producing section, crops must all 
be hurried to market in about two 
months’ time for later than that the roads 
will be impassable, thus crowding into a 
few weeks what should have six and 
eight months to do it in. The conse¬ 
quences are stringency in the money mar¬ 
ket, deoression of prices, and a good time 
for those parasites on the so-called 
Boards of Trade who feed on what they 
don’t, produce and gamble with other 
people’s property. 
I could give this subject all the time 
at the disposal of the Society during the 
whole meeting and then I would be touch¬ 
ing only the fringe of it. 
And now let me finish by saying that 
the good that can be done by a live agri¬ 
cultural organization is beyond calcula¬ 
tion, if conducted along proper lines. The 
subject of immigration is one that could 
be profitably handled by such, for the en- 
