Citrus Canker Condition 
Frank Stirling 
Mr. Hume: We will now take up the 
regular program for this evening. I am 
sorry to say that Professor Wilmon New¬ 
ell, the Plant Commissioner, will be un¬ 
able to be here this evening. Owing to 
the crisis in legislative matters, it was 
necessary for him to remain in Gaines¬ 
ville, so that he might be a little closer to 
Tallahassee. But he has arranged for 
another gentleman to fill his place. The 
man who is to take his place needs no in¬ 
troduction from me. 
We are now going to learn something 
of the general citrus canker condition in 
the state from Mr. Frank Stirling. (Ap¬ 
plause.) 
Mr. Stirling: We have been engaged 
in the work of eradicating this disease 
from Florida now for almost three years; 
in fact three years ago next month the 
work of eradicating the disease was first 
taken up by the Florida Growers and 
Shippers League under Mr. Lloyd S. 
Tenny and Dr. E. W. Berger, at that time 
the State Inspector of nursery stock. 
In May of 1914, it was known that the 
disease was present in Florida, but not 
known to what extent. One inspector at 
that time was employed to make a survey 
and find out just how far citrus canker 
had spread. In May, this one inspector 
found 108 grove trees on eight properties, 
infected. The next month he found 160; 
the next month 275. The number of 
properties increased, and the number of 
grove trees increased in proportion. 
The growers at that time took the mat¬ 
ter up themselves to arrange to employ 
more men to put on this work, and as a 
result, in August, 1313 infections were 
found. 
As a result of employing these extra 
men, the number of infections dropped so 
that in October only 565 were found. 
Now, take each month by itself, and 
you will find that the cankers found dur¬ 
ing any one particular year, was about 
the same in the month of one year that it 
was in the month of last year, in propor¬ 
tion. For instance, in August, 1914, the 
largest number of infections was found 
for that year. The same was true of 
I 9 I 5* 
The State Plant Board was created 
and the Florida Plant Act came into ef¬ 
fect in the spring of 1915. By that time 
the work had reached to such a state that 
we could get at it with some degree of in¬ 
telligence learned from our experience. 
Prior to that time no knowledge of the 
disease or how to handle it had been 
reached, but after that time, after the 
State Plant Board came into existence 
and the work was handled by that body, 
the work was carried on with more or less 
knowledge of how to handle it. 
48 
