FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
143 
but you felt it a hardship to lose the fruit. 
Mr. Skinner: Yes, of course; but it 
was scabby fruit. My work was only 
partly done. Now this spraying, as I 
understand it, has to be done every >year. 
Mr. Rolfs: As to that, you will find 
the old scabs will form on the leaves and 
the leaves will live for one or two years, 
and the old leaves, so long as one of the 
old sores is left, is a source of infection. 
All of us who have new groves coming 
on, should be most vigilant in keeping the 
fungus eliminated from the grove. 
Mr. Skinner: It is very interesting. 
There was quite a large young grove 
planted near our place this spring and a 
grapefruit grove near it. Every week 
these trees would put out new leaves and 
they were covered with scab. It must 
have been in the bark. I have known 
cases of that kind where it was thought 
to be due to improper cultivation, or 
something of that kind. That has noth¬ 
ing at all to do with it. 
Mr. Rolfs: In my own case, where I 
have only 800 or 1000 trees, in that small 
orchard I am able to keep the scab com¬ 
pletely suppressed by merely pruning-out 
methods, but that is a small proposition. 
Where you come to 40 or 80 acres, or 
more, the proposition is quite different. 
I had scab started vigorously on account 
of some lemon stock I had bought for 
propagating purposes. 
I want to raise a note of warning to 
those who are starting in with citrus. 
Make it one of the rules to keep this scab 
out if you can possibly do so; keep it 
out. It is a bad thing. We have lost 
over 100,000 boxes of grapefruit this year 
from scab. Of course, grapefruit has not 
brought a big price, so the loss has not 
been great, but if the price had been good, 
there would have been a large financial 
loss this year on that account. I have 
been in packing houses this winter where 
over 80 per cent of the culls were due to 
the scab, and I have talked with people 
who worked in the packing houses and 
who have paid attention to it, and they 
will back up these observations. 
Mr. Gillette: I would like to ask and 
have somebody answer who knows, 
whether they have noticed any scab what¬ 
ever on the second growth. Are you 
troubled at all with it after the first spring 
growth ? 
Mr. Skinner: Yes, on the growth that 
comes in the summer time, if the condi¬ 
tions are right. It may come any time. 
Mr. Gillette: I am a little bit “scabby" 
myself. My knowledge of it extends back 
farther than some of the others here. 
I think the first time I saw scab to rec¬ 
ognize it was about 1881. I was north 
that summer. We had a nursery at that 
time at South Lake Weir, Marion County. 
My brother, who was in charge of the 
nursery during my absence, wrote me that 
something was happening to the seedlings. 
At that time we had nothing but sour 
stock. He said they were looking yellow, 
the leaves were twisted and knotty and he 
was much exercised about it. I thought 
he was unduly alarmed, and when I came 
back I went to examine the nursery. I 
was amazed at its appearance. Up to 
that time the sour stock was as bright and 
green as the orange or the grapefruit. I 
was satisfied that what had happened was 
something serious. 
At the time the seedlings were planted. 
