FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
67 
Control of White Fly by Stamping Out. 
By H. B. Stevens. 
Mr. Presidentj Ladies and Gentlemen: 
The loss of fruit by thieving had be¬ 
come so great, that the growers at De- 
Land about decided to organize a fruit 
growers’ society for self protection, and to 
help in other ways, that such an organ¬ 
ization could; but like most si^ch move¬ 
ments, it was only talk until the white 
fly was discovered on some trees in the 
very center of the town. 
That called for prompt action and there 
was no trouble found in getting the grow¬ 
ers together and organizing the ^‘St. 
Johns River Fruit Growers’ Association.” 
One of the first things they did, was 
to appoint a committee to devise means 
for combating the white fly; that com¬ 
mittee first tried spraying with pure ker- 
dsine, with a result that they destroyed 
about 90 per cent, at one application, but 
the difficulty was to reach the other 10 
per cent. Soon after, the cold of Decem¬ 
ber come, and it took off so many leaves 
from many of the orange trees in the part, 
that the committee thought was the infect¬ 
ed district, that they decided the best plan 
would be, to gO' into' the matter thoroughly 
and defoliate all infected trees or shrubs. 
The matter was brought up before the 
society and they voted an assessment to 
meet the expense, and instructed the com- 
mitttee to go ahead. 
The way they went about it was this, 
first, they examined the trees and shrubs 
that they thought might be infected, and 
if they found any of the larva or pupa of 
the fly, then they took a few of the infect¬ 
ed leaves and with a glass showed them to 
the owner, and asked his or her permis¬ 
sion to remove the plants, or defoliate, as 
the case might be. If the party objected, 
then they let him alone, and went to the 
next place, knowing well, that after he 
had time to think the matter over, and to 
understand what an injury the pest would 
be, and how we were offering to remove 
it without any expense to- him, he would 
consent later, and so it proved, in every 
case but one, and in that case the party 
had to be persuaded by other means than 
reason. 
It was soon found, that wherever 
there were Cape Jessamine bushes there 
was apt to be white fly and in following 
Up the fly they went over an area of four 
square miles, and defoliated every infect¬ 
ed orange tree or Jessamine bush and also 
privet hedges. 
Had we anticipated in the beginning, 
that we should have to go over anything 
like SO great a territory, we might have 
shrunk from the task, but after we began 
we did not turn back. 
After going over every place we found 
anything on, around DeLand, we turned 
our attention to near-by places, and soon 
found that the fly had gotten quite a 
strong hold at DeLeon. 
We called the attention of Mr. Mc¬ 
Bride to what the flies were doing in his 
grove at DeLeon Springs, and he at 
once put a force at work defoliating a 
ten acre grove, and he says he got it done 
for $135. Adjoining him, was a grove 
equally effected, that we could not prevail 
on the owner to do as Mr. McBride had 
