102 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
sprays do no good, and they were given 
up early in the work. The only method 
we know of to get rid of canker is to 
burn the diseased trees, and this is done 
by a most unusual method. An ordinary 
spraying outfit is used as a huge torch, 
using a mixture of kerosene and crude oil 
as fuel, and the burning spray consumes 
canker, tree and all. 
We have had three cases where the 
owners would not let us burn the entire 
tree, but only that part that had canker on 
it. Our experience of attempting to rid 
these groves of canker, has proved beyond 
a doubt that such a method is a very great 
mistake. In one of the worst infected 
bearing groves the owner wanted to try 
to save the trunks of the trees, so we 
wrapped them with wet burlaps and burnt 
the rest of the tree. We did this last fall 
and the growth that these stumps have 
made during the past three weeks has de¬ 
veloped canker. This looks as if canker 
had been carried over on the heavy bark 
on the trunks that had been protected with 
the burlap. In another instance where the 
owner wanted to save all that he could 
of his large bearing trees, that were only 
slightly infected, we were allowed to burn 
only that part of the tree where canker 
had been found; the result being that 
canker has appeared on other parts of 
the trees and has spread to other trees in 
the grove. 
There has only been one instance where 
we have not been allowed to burn the 
canker that we have found; and that is in 
a nursery, where the owner is burning ac¬ 
cording to his own methods. Although 
in the two cases mentioned we were not 
allowed to burn as we thought best, we 
are confident that within a short time 
these owners will say to us go ahead and 
burn as you wish. 
The work of inspecting groves is very 
monotonous and especially so when among 
small trees, where there is no canker. To 
select men who have good eye sight, and 
who will keep their minds on their work 
and their eyes on the trees has not been 
an easy task. How to judge a man's 
work and tell whether he has done proper 
inspection or not, can only be shown by 
an inspection later on, and it was on this 
account that we waited with great concern 
the results of our second inspection, and 
we are very glad to say that this was very 
satisfactory, as we found only eight new 
cases. Part of our territory has been in¬ 
spected a third time and part a fourth 
time, and no canker has been found by 
the third or fourth inspection. This has 
shown that our first inspection was care¬ 
fully done, and has been very satisfactory 
to our manager and chief inspector. 
In order that the men who are working 
on the advanced inspection and do not 
have a chance to see canker very 
often, may keep up their knowledge of 
canker and not lose interest in their 
work, we have changed them from dis¬ 
tricts where no canker has been found 
to cankered groves for a few days, and 
then put them back in the advanced in¬ 
spection work again. Another thing that 
has been hard for us to determine is how 
many trees should a gang of men inspect 
in a certain time. When the reports 
showed that a gang had inspected eight 
thousand trees in a week, and another 
gang had inspected sixteen thousand, we 
did not know which gang had done the 
