120 
■ FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
CITRUS CANKER IN THE GULF COAST COUNTRY, WITH NOTES 
ON THE EXTENT OF CITRUS CULTURE IN 
THE LOCALITIES VISITED 
E. W. Berger 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen \ 
When no longer any reasonable doubt 
remained but that a new citrus disease 
had made its appearance in Florida, that 
at least one infection had been sent to 
us from Texas, and specimens were re¬ 
ceived from Alabama, it seemed pertinent, 
this spring, that some one should make a 
visit to the Gulf Coast country for the 
purpose of getting some idea of the dis¬ 
tribution and seriousness of this new dis¬ 
ease. Efforts to elicit definite information 
by correspondence had failed, as no one 
seemed to know anything definite about 
it. When the writer broached the desira¬ 
bility of such a visit before the State 
Board of Control at their meeting in 
March, it became at once a foregone con¬ 
clusion that he would be sent to make the 
investigation. 
To better bring the situation before 
you, this brief recapitulation is inserted 
here: The new disease, now known as 
citrus canker , had been discovered in two 
far separated localities in Florida. Near 
Monticello in West Florida, the writer 
had found it in about 20,000 small nur¬ 
sery trees consisting of some satsuma and 
pomelo on C. T. (citrus trifoliata) roots 
and some C. T. stock. Near Silver Palm, 
south Dade County, Mr. E. V. Blackman, 
Deputy Inspector in that county, had dis¬ 
covered it in about 20,000 pomelo and 
some oranges, all on sour roots, with ap¬ 
proximately another 80,000 trees more or 
less exposed to the infection. This was 
all nursery stock. Suffice it to state here 
that certificates, permitting any of this 
stock to be sold, were promptly withheld, 
and treatment recommended, thus practi¬ 
cally placing the infected stock in quaran¬ 
tine. In each instance the information 
then available was to the effect that the 
seedlings used for roots had come from 
Texas. This proved true, however, only 
for the sour seedlings used at Silver Palm, 
which came from Port Arthur, Texas. A 
recent letter from J. H. Giradeau, Jr., for¬ 
merly a nurseryman at Monticello, states 
that he imported the C. T. seedlings, used 
at Mbnticello, directly from Japan, about 
February, 1910. 
Leaving Gainesville, Florida, on the 
morning of Mhrch 14th, the afternoon 
was spent at Monticello to again look 
over the situation there. The places visit¬ 
ed in other states were Auburn, Mobile 
and Grand Bay, Alabama; Biloxi, Gulf¬ 
port and Wiggins, Mississippi; New Or¬ 
leans and Happy Jack, Louisiana; Port 
Arthur, Noma, Alvin, Brownsville, Mc¬ 
Allen and San Benito, Texas; and Mata- 
moras, Mexico. 
ALABAMA 
At the Board of Trade rooms in Mo¬ 
bile, the writer was informed that one and 
one-half million trees had been planted 
