50 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
W€ cannot afford to get careless. If you 
would keep free of their damage, keep free 
of them. Never go near them and then 
into your own grove, without first making 
sure that you carry none with you on 
your clothes, in your carriage, etc., and in¬ 
sist on the same consideration of anyone 
else who enters your grounds. The 
benefits to be derived from local protective 
organizations are too manifest to need 
more than a passing remark here, and 
those neighborhoods that can do so, would 
be more benefitted by this method of pro¬ 
tection than by any other. It is cheaper to 
keep this insect out of a community than 
it is to fight it after it has gained a foot¬ 
hold. We have kept it out of our neigh¬ 
borhood for several years by spraying it 
at the nearest points, and cutting down all 
food plants in its path, and now the fly is 
not as near us, as it was at the beginning 
of our fight to keep it out. 
There is nobmuch danger of getting the 
fly from any of the leading nurserymen, 
for I believe they have a scruple in the 
direction of spreading so damaging a pest, 
but there is danger of shipping nursery 
stock through the country, either by ex¬ 
press, or freight when the fly is on the 
wing, unless it is packed very tight, and 
no chance for the insect to get to the con¬ 
tents of the package. The express and 
freight cars gather them up, when passing 
through infested places, and often carry 
them many miles from their original 
breeding places. I have seen flies at Wild¬ 
wood, which came all the way from Or¬ 
lando, in the express car, a distance of fifty 
miles. You can imagine what would have 
occurred if there had been an open top case 
of citrus trees in that car. 
And now in conclusion, I want to say 
that if we bend all our energies to the point 
of breaking, and strive to keep our pro¬ 
duct up to its known standard of excel¬ 
lence I can see no reason why we cannot 
succeed in keeping the reputation of Flori¬ 
da oranges at the head of the list, believ¬ 
ing that there is only one thing that we 
can do, one that will be of lasting benefit 
to our organization, and that is, to strive 
every way possible to make our product 
better each year, until we have well earned 
the reputation that we now enjoy, that of 
producing the best citrus fruit grown in 
the world, and then by untiring effort keep 
its reputation right there. Regretting 
that I cannot give you anything l>etter in 
the way of a report, as an aid in that 
direction, I am. 
Yours respectfully, 
O. W. Conner. 
Tangerine, Fla., May i, 1905. 
Mr. President—I have a letter that was 
intended to have reached me in time to 
have been incorporated in my report, but 
it did not do so and I beg to have the same 
received and attached as a part of report 
of the Committee on Citrus Fruits. 
On motion duly seconded and carried, 
the following paper referred to by Mr. 
Conner was received as a part of the report 
on citrus fruits: 
• May 9th, 1905. 
O. W. Conner, 
Jacksonville, Fla., 
Dear Sir: 
I have your letter of recent date stating 
that you are preparing a paper on citrus 
fruits, and that you would like me to 
write you something regarding the situa¬ 
tion in Cuba, knowing that I am entirely 
familiar with it while you are not. You 
also say that you would like to have a gen- 
