FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
31 
carry out practical demonstration work in 
groves in DeSoto County. The advice 
and assistance of Prof. H. E. Stevens, 
Plant Pathologist of the Experiment Sta¬ 
tion, was secured. The county agent first 
arranged with the owners of the grove to 
conduct these demonstrations by treating 
a few trees in each grove for the control 
of foot-rot and gummosis by thorough 
application of Bordeaux paste and carbo- 
lineum and the scraping away of the dis¬ 
eased area, giving the trees an opportu¬ 
nity to heal over and to prolong their 
bearing life, which treatment the county 
agent applied systematically to each of io 
groves, revisiting them at stated inter¬ 
vals to watch the development and call the 
attention of the owner to any new infec¬ 
tion that might be present, and renew the 
treatment as many times as it should be 
necessary. 
We found that many of these trees had 
already received similar treatment in 
past years, but they had used various 
preparations of unknown strength and 
applied them without any definite sys¬ 
tem, and in very few cases had at¬ 
tempted to remove the diseased wood; 
with the result that the treated por¬ 
tion would partially overcome the dis¬ 
ease, but it would break out again in 
fresh places, causing the impression on 
the owners that the treatment had been 
useless and there was no relief. 
From the citrus standpoint, the next 
important work carried on by demon¬ 
stration was by Mr. I. E. Soar, Pasco 
County, whom you will remember as hav¬ 
ing made an excellent report on peach cul¬ 
ture before this Society last year. Mr. 
Soar’s work with citrus was in control 
of gummosis, foot-rot and scale, and simi¬ 
lar to that conducted in DeSoto County, 
but only when he was called on and not 
as a regular demonstration. This agent 
graduated from the University of Flor¬ 
ida and had been associated with fruit¬ 
growing and nursery work for several 
years, so he was frequently called on to 
select citrus land, citrus stocks, select bud- 
wood, and more especially for the con¬ 
trol of citrus scale. 
WORK WITH CITRUS CANKER 
The agents of,Osceola and DeSoto 
Counties gave some special attention to 
citrus canker immediately following the 
citrus seminar at Gainesville last Septem¬ 
ber. Mr. Crews, the agent of DeSoto 
County, attended the citrus seminar and 
on his return made a report to the Ar¬ 
cadia Board of Trade and County Com¬ 
missioners of DeSoto, emphasizing the 
necessity of definite action on their part 
to prevent the spread of canker in the 
citrus groves of DeSoto County. Follow¬ 
ing this, the County Commissioners rec¬ 
ommended that he visit the canker-infect¬ 
ed territory on the lower east coast and 
familiarize himself with the disease, in¬ 
spection work, method of control, etc. Mr. 
Crews spent about a week in this terri¬ 
tory visiting the most important centers, 
and by using his car got in communication 
with the inspectors, and thus obtained a 
eood idea of the situation. The countrv 
paid his expenses. On his return he con¬ 
ducted seven meetings in DeSoto County, 
at Bowling Green, Arcadia, Zolfo, Wau- 
chula, Punta Gorda, Sebring and Avon 
Park, making a report at each place and 
