Report of Committee on Diseases^ Insects^ and Method 
of Control. 
By Ernest A. Bessey* 
(Pathologist in Charge of Sub-Tropical Laboratory.) 
Mr. Presidefitj Ladies and Gentlemen: 
I regret that it is impossible for me 
to be present in person at your meeting 
in St. Petersburg, but my work compels 
me to be out of the State. My report, 
accordingly, will be read by the Secre¬ 
tary and will, naturally, be somewhat 
shorter than if I could be present to ex¬ 
plain the various points. I have confined 
my observations to the Southern part of 
the State and have asked Professor Hume 
to include in his report something about 
the diseases occurring in the Northern 
part of the State and diseases of nursery 
stock. 
Probably the greatest interest in the 
mhtter of diseases centers around the 
struggle with white fly. This has been 
gradually spreading but has not, so far 
as I am informed, made any very great 
jumps. According to a statement of Mr. 
C. B. Thornton of Orlando, the unpre¬ 
cedented drought the past winter and 
spring has been beneficial in one respect 
in that it reduced the injury from this 
pest. He states in a letter to me that ‘‘the 
red fungus stood the dry weather and is 
still active, while the yellow, while it 
spread very rapidly after its first appear¬ 
ance early last summer, has itself been 
attacked by a fungus enemy and is now 
virtually exterminated. My experience 
with the red fungus has been so satis¬ 
factory that I will have no further use for 
my spray-pump.” 
On the other hand, the dry weather has 
been favorable to the spread of the purple 
and long scale, but Mr. Thornton is con¬ 
vinced that the fungi will keep it under 
control. 
The exceedingly dry weather has had a 
more or less harmful effect on the Man¬ 
atee snail which requires a certain amount 
of moisture for its favorable development. 
Especially disastrous have been the fires 
which have run through the hammocks 
in many of the groves in that vicinity, 
since these totally exterminated this bene¬ 
ficial mollusk in the region burned over. ' 
The orange disease known as “blight,” 
or in some parts of the State as “wilt”, 
has slowly continued tO' spread through 
the State. It has now firmly taken hold 
in the lower end of Merritt’s Island and is 
doing great damage tO' the groves there. 
There is nothing new in the method of 
treatment that can be reported at this 
time although I have started to take up 
the ^ investigation of this disease again 
and hope, upon my return to the State 
this summer, to do a good deal of work 
upon it. In view of this, I would be very 
glad to get into communication with all 
orange growers who are troubled by this 
disease. In a few localities I have found 
the disease to attack severely not only the 
