FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
37 
er we have had, too. I think it is the 
dry weather causes it. 
Mr. Hollingsworth—I wish to ask 
if this is the case this season more than 
usual. 
Mr. Wakelin—Our trees have al¬ 
ways done more or less of it, and I 
have not thought it was on account of 
the dry weather. We had a drought 
from the first of February to the first 
of April. Previous to their bloom they 
were not suffering for water. 
Mr. Hollingsworth—My experience 
on these lines has been simply and 
purely practical. I have corns on my 
hands like a small boy has on his heels 
because I have got right down and 
worked with my men. I think the 
same rules apply to the orange trees in 
Florida as to the peach and apple trees 
in Western Missouri, where I was rais¬ 
ed. I have found that any abnormal 
condition such as dry weather, or any¬ 
thing like that will produce an abnor¬ 
mal condition of the tree. If a limb 
is injured by rubbing or chafing, it 
tries to reproduce itself and perhaps 
goes to the other extreme in order to 
establish its. equilibrium. We had an 
old apple tree back in Missouri that 
had never borne, and it had a spot on 
it that I thought made a pretty good 
target, and I shot at it, and after that, 
it bore. I think a tree tries to offset 
the injurious effects and many of them 
will bloom out fully and never show 
that it is in an abnormal condition. 
Mr. Wilson—I would like to ask if 
the same thing happened all over the 
State that happened in my grove this 
year. An insect appeared, we call it 
the ‘hhrip” at Gainesville. I noticed 
it this year for the first time. It is a 
tiny insect resembling the hen mite. 
It looks like what comes in the rose 
in the spring and makes them blight. 
I was so very anxious about the grove 
and bloom on account of the drought 
that I suppose I noticed the bloom 
more than usual, and I think it is the 
same thing we call thrip, which de¬ 
stroyed die strawberry crop around 
Gainesville about ten years ago so that 
there have been absolutely none raised 
on account of it. 
I would like to say while I am up 
that my grove is like the grove the 
gentleman spoke of; the trees were 
heavily loaded with bloom, but we 
had no rain and I devised a scheme 
to water them. I went down with four 
teams and stopped at Ocala and got 
whiskey barrels and put them on the 
wagons and applied three barrels of 
water to each tree while the trees were 
in bloom and thought I had solved the 
problem of making the fruit stick. 
Now, the oranges vary in size from 
one the size of the end of a lead pencil 
to nearly a full grown orange, and they 
have never stopped dropping from the 
time they started. At what period can 
you tell when the fruit that is on is 
going to stay on? When can you safe¬ 
ly estimate your crop? 
Mr. Taber—I think there is one 
thing we should have settled. Did he 
thoroughly wash out those whiskey 
barrels before he began to water the 
trees. 
Prof. Rolfs—And I think we ought 
to know whether he got them from 
Ocala or Gainesville. 
Mr. Neil—I would like to ask Mr. 
Wilson if it was after that that the 
thrip did any harm. 
Mr. Wilson—I think it was before. 
I think there would have been a good 
