FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
99 
even in the worst cases we can eradicate 
it. 
One grove I recall had as bad an infec- 
tion as we have known, a forty-acre grove 
of young trees. At the end of the first 
week’s inspection we burned two hundred 
and eighty trees. For weeks we burned 
upwards of one hundred trees a week. 
We finally burned one-third of it, possibly 
a little more, but for several weeks now 
we have found no canker there and we 
believe we have won the fight in that 
grove. We believe we can win in other 
similar cases but if there is anything that 
interferes, anything that causes delay in 
burning the trees, even for a short time, 
our chances are greatly lessened. 
For that reason we must have a law. 
We will get nowhere without it, and the 
law without the money and power to 
operate it will be almost useless. With 
the law and with the money six or eight 
months ago we might now be able to make 
a very much better report. 
We know what the law is that has been 
offered; it has been thrashed out by a 
number of our growers who 1 know our 
needs in that line. We know what the ap¬ 
propriation is that we have asked for, and 
we know we are going to need within the 
next two years every cent of it. We have 
not asked for anything more than we ac¬ 
tually require. We have asked for an ap¬ 
propriation of $125,000 and we have not 
expected that it is going to be cut down 
to’$50,000 or $60,000. 
One of the other provisos that I men¬ 
tioned in stating that I believe we are go¬ 
ing to get rid of canker, was the man who 
will administer the law throughout the 
state. On the selection of the right man 
for that work a great deal of the efficiency 
of the law is going to depend. It will be 
an extremely disagreeable position to 
hold. We must have a man who, in the 
first place is remarkably intelligent. He 
must have a broad training and then if 
we can perform some surgical operation 
on him and doubly reinforce his backbone 
it will be a very good thing. Then we 
should perform another operation and re¬ 
move his heart. When we have a man 
with a reinforced backbone and with no 
heart at all, we will have found the right 
man for the place. (Laughter.) 
To keep from entering into a dispute 
with the gentleman who said it was idle 
to prophesy, I will have to confine my¬ 
self to personal ideas and state that it is 
in my opinion possible to get rid of citrus 
canker. Now whether it is probable that 
we will do so depends upon the provisos 
I have mentioned. 
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