FLORIDA >STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
33 
in agricultural work and at the same time 
distribute packages of selected seed corn. 
This corn was intended for planting by 
the pupils, and in the fall contests for the 
best corn produced will be held, and later 
there will be a contest in corn judging. 
farmers' institutes proper. 
The Farmers Institute work during 
the present fiscal year has been carried on 
rather more vigorously than in any pre¬ 
vious year. Up to May 8, we had held 
114 sessions, scattered from Pensacola 
on the west, to Miami on the south. We 
have not visited every county in the State, 
from the fact that certain counties are 
more wide awake than others, and as a 
rule, those which make their wants known 
are the ones which are likely to have 
them supplied. The total attendance on 
these institutes will run somewhere in the 
neighborhood of seven thousand. In this 
connection I may say that the farmers of 
the State are probably more active and 
more insistent than the fruit growers. 
The citrus section which was formerly 
the progressive section has now become 
conservative and the farming section pro¬ 
gressive. 
COUNTY FAIRS. 
County fairs are being held in many 
different counties of the State. They are 
not always known under the name of 
fairs, though in substance they amount to 
the same thing. Santa Rosa, Walton, 
Washington, Holmes, Jackson, Gadsden, 
Leon, Jefferson, Madison, Suwanee, Ma¬ 
rion, Polk and Dade are all confidently 
looking forward to an exhibition of ag¬ 
ricultural and horticultural products next 
fall and winter. A number of these coun¬ 
ties held fairs last year, and in almost all 
cases the institution was a financial suc¬ 
cess. From an educational standpoint 
they were much more successful, how¬ 
ever, than from a financial standpoint. The 
total attendance upon these institutions 
would amount to hundreds of thousands. 
These gatherings are very important 
from the fact that they bring the city 
more closely in touch with the country. 
THE INTERSTATE FAIR. 
During November of this year will be 
held the interstate fair at Pensacola. A 
dozen or fourteen counties of Florida 
and Alabama will be represented. At 
the interstate fair there will be offered a 
silver cup trophy for the corn-judging 
contest and other prizes of magnitude. 
THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA. 
The county and State fairs are potent 
factors in the upbuilding of the agricul¬ 
tural and horticultural interests of the 
State. They come more, however, as an 
expression of the existing conditions 
than as a direct effort toward the formu¬ 
lation and carrying forward of definite 
ideals. This work of leadership and pre¬ 
senting of ideals is to a large extent the 
mission of the University of Florida. 
Necessarily this institution, since it be¬ 
longs to the people, must adapt itself to 
the conditions as they are found. It would 
be a practical folly to attempt to copy or 
model our institution after that existing 
in any other State whose conditions were 
entirely different from those found in 
Florida. Consequently, this institution 
must blaze its own way. While the ex- 
