16 THE FLORIDA BUGGIST 
WHAT THE FLORIDA CITRUS GROWER NEEDS * 
By W. W. YOTHERS, 
Bureau of Entomology, Orlando, Fla. 
For several years we have wondered why so many of the 
prominent citrus growers failed to appreciate the full value of 
insect control. We have visited many growers who have an 
enviable social standing, superior intellect, and who have 
amassed more or less wealth, who were not interested in the 
control of insects on their trees by any artificial means. We 
must confess that this attitude has dampened our enthusiasm 
and has therefore hindered us in our work. We have had meet- 
ings of the Florida Horticultural Society for 30 years, we have 
had a State University for many years with short courses and 
seminars for the dissemination of knowledge, and this labora- 
tory has been located in Orlando for nine years, but for some 
reason many of the citrus growers have never been reached and 
know nothing of any researches which have been done in this 
State. Many of them do know about the researches, but are 
not interested enough to take action. 
More than a year ago we visited a community and the result 
of this visit gave us our first idea as to the needs of the Florida 
citrus grower. After eight years residence the idea came to us 
as to what the trouble might be. We have decided that it is 
practically useless to talk to the people about: some insect or 
animal which they have never seen and about which they can 
form no idea as to its appearance, how it gets its living, or 
what injury it might do. It is equally useless to write learned 
bulletins on a pest whose appearance the grower has no con- 
ception of and knows nothing of its life history or biology. 
Bulletins of course are all right if a grower knows or under- 
stands what he is reading about. We decided more than a year 
ago that the lack of entomological knowledge was the funda- 
mental difficulty of the growers. Most of them do not know 
rust mites or their eggs even if they chanced to see them. 
Neither do they know where they are found, either in the summer 
or in the winter. They do not know if they have the appearance 
of an elephant or a monkey. Nor do they understand the ap- 
pearance of scale insects or the whitefly any better. A great 
many growers do not know that nearly all the injurious insects 
*Published by permission of the chief of the Bureau. 
