100 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
CITRUS CANKER IN NORTH DADE COUNTY 
M. S. Burbank, Miami, Fla. 
Mr. President , Ladies and Gentlemen : 
It will be a difficult thing to present to 
the members of this society,, a paper on 
citrus canker, that will at once make them 
realize the seriousness of the disease, and 
the danger that threatens the citrus in¬ 
dustry, not only of Dade county, but of 
the entire state. 
When we commenced the eradication 
work in the north part of Dade county, 
last summer, we realized that we had a 
big job on our hands to find out how much 
canker we had and how widely it was dis¬ 
tributed, but we had no idea what the era¬ 
dication work would mean. 
We began the work of hunting for 
canker about the middle of August, and 
worked with a comparatively small force 
for five months, covering nearly all of the 
territory of our association, consisting of 
216 square miles, with about 414,000 
grove trees to inspect. It took us nearly 
six months to make the first inspection, 
and this showed up 39 different infections 
of canker, nearly all of these being around 
the two originally infected nurseries. 
The results of the second inspection 
have shown that the first inspection was a 
pretty careful one, as we have found only 
eight new infections. 
Fifty-four men are doing inspection 
work in gangs of six. Each gang with a 
foreman. 
We have a total of 47 groves that have 
shown canker sometime since last August, 
but we believe that over one third of these 
are now free of the disease. 
The inspection has been carried on with 
every possible precaution being taken to 
prevent the inspectors themselves carry¬ 
ing canker on their clothes from one 
grove to another. They wear a one-piece 
cotton suit, made for this work, that 
covers them from head to foot. In finish¬ 
ing the work in one grove they do not go 
to another until they have put on a clean 
suit, and sprayed their shoes and leggings 
with bi-chloride. The suit that is taken 
off after finishing each grove is dipped in 
bi-chloride, and hung up to dry. 
The men are divided into two groups, 
doing two kinds of work, one doing what 
we call the advanced inspection, that is 
inspecting the groves that have never had 
any canker, and the other doing the re¬ 
inspection work, or inspecting the infected 
groves. 
The men on the advanced work never 
go into a grove that is known to be in¬ 
fected, and when they do find canker they 
go no further, but leave that grove im¬ 
mediately, and one of the gangs doing 
re-inspection work in diseased groves is 
put in there to finish the inspection and 
burn the trees. 
This is done to lessen the chances of 
the men themselves carrying canker. 
When canker is once found in a grove, 
that grove is put on the infected list, quar¬ 
antined as far as possible, and carefully 
inspected once a week, and*all cankered 
