IN FLORIDA 47 



over the entire shore region sometime in early autumn; this 

 perhaps being the mating season. At such times I have seen 

 acres so thickly covered with them that they almost touched 

 each other. 



Something may be done in the way of destroying them by 

 dipping a wad of cotton, oakum, old cloth or anything that is 

 an absorbent into gasolene, putting it into a fresh hole and tightly 

 closing it with mud. Small pieces of bread partly coated with 

 Rough on Rats or any roach paste will be eagerly eaten by them 

 with fatal results. It is almost impossible to protect anything 

 from their ravages. I have set a barrel with the heads knocked 

 out over some choice plant, pushing it well down into the earth, 

 only to find a little later that one or more of these wretches had 

 tunneled under the rim, come up inside, and utterly destroyed 

 my plant. The best protection I have found is to stick branches 

 of trees or palmetto leaves closely around a plant several rows 

 deep, but even this often fails. 



Rabbits are sometimes very destructive, being especially bad 

 during the dry, cold weather of winter. I have never been able 

 to catch one though I have had several traps that were war- 

 ranted to get them every time. A gun in the hands of a good 

 marksman, or pieces of apple doped with rat poison or roach 

 paste, will help to keep them down. They are prone to cut off 

 the leaves and stems of young palms, and these may be protected 

 by setting branches or palmetto leaves around them in the manner 

 directed for protecting from land crabs. Sometimes, however, 

 they manage to push these away and destroy the plant. 



There is a wood rat that makes his home in and around our 

 dwellings that often is very destructive to plants, especially to 

 epiphytes. I have only been able to get a very few of them with 

 traps or poison. After one or two are taken the rest become wise 

 and rob the bait from traps with immunity. There is a prepara- 

 tion made by the Pasteur laboratories which works by inocula- 

 tion, that seems to be a good thing. 



I can say but little about the many plant diseases which work 

 destruction for every grower. I have spoken of Orchid blight 

 elsewhere and I consider sulfur an excellent remedy for various 

 blights, or perhaps a preventive. It sometimes happens that a 



