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FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
carry it in your hair.” I told him how 
carefully we disinfect our hands, our face 
and hair. “Well/’ he said, there is a 
chance for you to get it inside your clothes 
and spread it that way.” 
I told him that Mr. Henry and I had 
been in hundreds and hudreds of proper¬ 
ties up and down the east coast, and found 
canker in less than one per cent, of the 
property we had inspected, and that on 
no occasion had it developed after any of 
our visits. That seems to be conclusive 
evidence of a practical nature. 
Next, he branded the fire treatment as 
being a failure. He had found in Dade 
County one nursery where the trees had 
been burned and where the sprouts that 
came up showed canker. He forgot the 
99 per cent, that had come up clean and 
remembered the i per cent, that showed 
canker. He said, “That proves that the 
fire treatment is a failure.” 
I met his argument with this: in Dade 
County the canker is scattered all over; 
active cases are coming up all the time, 
and there is quite a possibility of the 
canker being carried back into this nur¬ 
sery. If you come into our territory, 
which, on the whole, is clean, you can 
draw fair conclusions, and in not one sin¬ 
gle case where the trees have been burned 
and the' new sprouts come up have they 
showed canker. 
In Palm City, in Mr. Fournier’s grove, 
late one afternoon, I found four cases of 
canker. It was quite late and I did not 
have my torch with which to burn the 
trees (we usually burn them within ten 
minutes after they are located). So I 
the trees and told the owner of 
the place to burn them the next morning. 
It seems that a man who was planting 
trees nearby for a nursery company had 
had quite a good deal of experience with 
canker in one of his employer’s nurseries. 
He had been talking about the injustice 
of the inspectors, and their habit of find¬ 
ing canker where none existed, etc. So 
the owner of the infected grove went over 
and asked this man to come and look at 
the trees. 
The man looked at the first tree and 
said, “There isn’t any canker on that 
tree.” Then he looked at the second, and 
said, “There isn’t any canker on that tree.” 
And so with the third suspected tree. 
When he reached the fourth tree, he was 
about to pass that up when the gentleman 
who owned the place pointed out the 
leaves that were infected, and he had to 
admit there was some canker on that 
tree. Then the owner went back himself 
and together they examined the other 
trees, and they found canker on all four 
of them. 
Now, half of that story was told to me 
at one time by a prince of knockers. He 
said, “Why, of course you fellows will 
find canker there, because you are getting 
a nice salary for it and traveling up and 
down the east coast like tourists; of 
course you will continue to find canker as 
long as the money lasts.” (He forgot I 
had walked two miles up to his place.) 
And he quoted the case where the canker 
inspector had found four trees which he 
had pronounced canker, and the man with 
so much practical experience had said the^ 
did not have canker. I said, “Say, it is 
only a few miles to that grove; we will 
go down there and see for ourselves.” 
We started down there, and then he 
