FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
77 
scaldy, rusty looking appearance on the 
leaves showed up. 
“* * * In the judgment of the writer, 
you have created a great big scare and 
done the people here a great injustice 
where there was no excuse for it known 
to the writer, except that you are not com¬ 
petent to handle your job. 
“Now on account of this citrus fruiU 
scare, there is a howl from different parts 
of the United States landed in the law¬ 
making bodies in Washington, D. C., 
and in Tallahassee, Fla., for appropria¬ 
tion to take care of the citrus canker, 
where you, the man in authority for the 
State of Florida, know absolutely nothing 
about it, it seems to' the writer; but, as 
you have acted, shot off a lot of hot air 
seemingly to help get the legislative bodies 
to swell the appropriation for nursery and 
fruit stock inspection and insect pests, 
without informing yourself. Yours truly 
for unadulterated facts.” 
But to get back to> the Massachusetts 
situation again. Up to that time, 1890- 
1900, $1,175,000 had been spent by Mas¬ 
sachusetts for the suppression of the 
gipsy moth, when it was allowed to lapse 
during five years. But in 1905 the situa¬ 
tion became so serious and appeals for as¬ 
sistance SO' urgent that the Massachusetts 
legislature again took action in the matter. 
In the meantime the area of infestation 
had increased from 359 sq. miles to 2,224 
sq. miles and had also spread into Maine, 
New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Con¬ 
necticut, so that the Federal Government 
was also appealed to for assistance. Since 
1905, when the work was resumed, until 
1910 nearly $4,000.00 have been ex¬ 
pended jointly by the Federal Govern¬ 
ment, the infested states, and by cities 
and towns and private parties in those 
states. During that time the State of 
Massachusetts alone expended over $750,- 
000 annually; and the fight is still on and 
every state in the Union is endangered. 
It is, furthermore, now no more a ques¬ 
tion of eradication but one largely of con¬ 
trol and keeping the gipsy moth from 
spreading. This simply means that Mas¬ 
sachusetts, by allowing the eradication 
work to lapse at the critical moment, 
has saddled a perpetual expense upon all 
industries dependent upon the growing 
of trees. Neither will it be necessary for 
me to point to the moral. It is simply a 
case where a body of men, the Massa¬ 
chusetts Legislature, entrusted with the 
welfare of their state, preferred to take 
advice from a committee of men who 
were fitted neither by training or experi¬ 
ence to' pass judgment on matters about 
which they were ignorant, in preference 
to heeding the reports of such men as Dr. 
L. O. Howard, C. L. Marlatt, and the 
late Dr. John B. Smith, three of Ameri¬ 
ca’s foremost entomologists. 
SPREAD OF CITRUS CANKER, OTHER 
DANGERS AND CONDITIONS. 
That nursery stock is the principal 
agency by which such disease as citrus 
canker is distributed is unquestionable. 
Only after an infection had become well 
established in a locality do we find evi¬ 
dence of its being further spread by other 
agencies. In Dade county evidence has 
been adduced that canker was further 
spread on grove or nursery implements, 
men’s clothing, vehicles, and what not; in 
fact anything from a hoe to an ice wagon. 
