FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
49 
In the winter one year ago, it dropped 
to a very low mark; 21 in February and 
March, and 49 in April. These few in¬ 
fections which showed up were not be¬ 
cause the canker was not there, but be¬ 
cause of the very unfavorable conditions 
for the disease to develop so that it could 
be located by the inspectors. 
The lowest line reached was February 
of this year, when only four infections 
were found in the entire state. (Ap¬ 
plause). 
On new growth coming out in March, 
some infections were found. But consid¬ 
er that twenty-two counties of the state 
have been infected and there have been 
almost seven thousand acres of citrus 
groves in Florida that have been infected, 
and nine grove trees is a very shall num¬ 
ber. 
There have been 443 groves, or proper¬ 
ties having citrus that have been infected 
one time or another since the work began 
back in May of 1914. 
First, I will state that when a property 
or a grove in Florida has been infected 
with citrus canker, that grove is watched 
continually; it is inspected regularly; in 
fact, there is hardly a day passes but 
what one or more inspectors are watching 
and inspecting that grove. When the 
disease has been supposedly eradicated in 
that particular grove to such an extent 
that the Plant Board of Florida believes 
the disease is entirely wiped out from that 
property, the Plant Board removes the 
quarantine surrounding that property. 
I will go back a little further and state 
that immediately upon the property be¬ 
coming infected with this disease, a quar¬ 
antine automatically applies. That quar¬ 
antine has reference to the movement of 
any nursery stock, not only to that prop¬ 
erty but from within one mile of that 
property. It has also a bearing upon how 
the owners of that property conduct them¬ 
selves in going from that property to an¬ 
other property; in other words, that quar¬ 
antine*^ meant to prevent the dissemina¬ 
tion of the disease from that infected 
property to a healthy grove, just as a doc¬ 
tor would quarantine a house wherein 
there is a case of smallpox. 
Now, as I told you before, 443 proper¬ 
ties have been infected in Florida, scat¬ 
tered throughout twenty-two counties. 
The Plant Board has removed the quar¬ 
antine from 306 of those properties. 
Some months the Plant Board removes 
the quarantine from a dozen properties; 
sometimes one or two ; sometimes several 
months will elapse without removing a 
single quarantine. It depends, of course, 
upon conditions. 
Last month there were but nine infec¬ 
tions, and the month previous but four in¬ 
fections. But do not lose sight of the 
fact that even if there is only one infec¬ 
tion found in the whole state of Florida, 
canker is still a menace to the citrus in¬ 
dustry of the state. That one infection 
would prove that it has not yet been erad¬ 
icated. 
We believe we have found all of the 
canker centers in Florida, but when you 
stop to consider what an enormous pro¬ 
blem it is to inspect every citrus tree in 
the state of Florida, we do not know that 
we have. There are 300,000 acres of 
citrus plantings in Florida, at least. It 
would take an army of 500 men several 
years to inspect every tree and discover 
