150 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



the barrel staves. Moreover the apples contained in this barrel were of 

 a grade so inferior as to give rise to the suspicion that they were used 

 because they were the cheapest obtainable for the purpose in view. 

 The accompanying photograph, taken just prior to the destruction of 

 this shipment, endeavors to represent the method of packing by sub- 

 stituting the first layer of grapefruit surrounded by apples for the two 

 top layers of apples. Close examination of this illustration shows the 

 word "apples" in heavy black pencil on the head of the barrel, and 

 over a shipping tag of the Utah Vegetable Company, Salt Lake City, 

 Utah, had been pasted a printed label as follows : ' ' American Express 

 Company, D. H. Frank No. 3844 From Douglas White General Indus- 

 trial Agent Salt Lake Route to Douglas White, Pacific Electric Bldg., 

 Los Angeles, Cal. " — Avery S. Hoyt. 



Citrus Canker. — In order to further acquaint the citrus growers of 

 California with the deadly character of citrus canker we are publish- 

 ing herewith a letter from Professor Wilmon Newell, Commissioner of 

 the Florida Plant Board. Citrus canker does not exist in California, 

 and it is one of our sincerest hopes that it never will : 



State Plant Board of Flobida. 



Gainesville, Florida, February 24, 191G. 

 Mr. a. R. Gregory, 



Care Hon. James Ralph, Jr., 

 Mayor's Office, 



San Francisco, California. 



Dear Sir: I have your favor of February 15th, from which I note that you are 

 desirous of testing a carbon sulphur solution as a remedy for citrus canker, and 



also that advised you to come to Florida to see whether you could 



make tests of this kind upon citrus canker in this State. It is very difficult for a 

 person who has not had actual experience with extremely dangerous and infectious 

 diseases, such as bubonic plague, foot-and-mouth diseases, etc., to understand what 

 thorough precautions must be taken in dealing with citrus canker. 



I note from your letter that you would like to have, say, three one-acre blocks of 

 canker infected trees upon which to conduct your experiments. We could no more 

 think of permitting three acres of canker-infected trees to remain standing for 

 experimental purposes than we could of blowing up our State Capitol with dyna- 

 mite. The disease is so deadly and so infectious that every infected tree is destroyed, 

 as soon as discovered, with a burning oil spray without any person or anything 

 being allowed to come in contact with the tree or nearer to it then absolutely 

 necessary for its destruction with the burning spray. 



I do not know of a single canker-infected tree standing in the groves or nurseries 

 of Florida today, and if we did know of anything of the kind it would not be standing 

 tomorrow. It is out of the question for us to permit any experiments with citrus 

 canker except under the direct personal supervision of our own Plant Pathologist, 

 and all of his experiments are conducted in very strong doubly screened cages where 

 the most thorough precautions imaginable are taken in the way of disinfection. 

 Even the Plant Pathologist himself, after being in a compartment where there is a 

 cankei'-infected tree or an inoculated tree, disinfects his person and his clothing when 

 leaving. Our inspectors also, when seeking for canker in the groves, wear special 

 inspection suits covering their entire clothing, and when leaving a property 

 thoroughly disinfect these suits, their hands, face, hat, and shoes with corrosive sub- 

 limate solution, regardless of whether they have found canker or not. 



For your information I will say that practically everything which has ever been 

 found successful against a plant disease has been tried against citrus canker, abso- 

 lutely without success. In fact, sprayings with the very strongest fungicides that 

 can be used on growing plants have only resulted in spreading the disease. We are 



