FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
105 
will kill the beetles, but should be ap¬ 
plied before or after the fruiting season. 
It might be risky to use it without an 
interval of at least three weeks between 
the application and picking time, with 
one or two good rains during the inter¬ 
val. 
Mr. Phelps.—I would like to ask how 
many men it would take to handle that 
bell tent? 
Prof. Gossard.—About four. It can 
be handled by a smaller number, but I 
don’t think anything is saved by it. I 
think about four men, including the fu- 
migator; three men who have nothing 
but the mechanical part to look after. 
Dr. Inman.—How long would it take 
after the tent was up to generate the 
gas and fumigate the tree ? 
Prof. Gossard.—About forty minutes. 
We ranged our time from thirty minutes 
up to considerably more than that. If 
you use a light dose increase the time. 
With a large dose shorten the time. 
About four tents would keep a crew of 
four men just about busy. It requires 
about ten minutes to shift each tent. 
Mr. Porcher.—I would like to ask 
Prof. Gossard a few questions. First, If 
it is not necessary to have an expert 
capable of computing the area that each 
tent has each time it is placed on the 
tree? Is it not impossible to use the 
tent in bright sunlight? Is it not also 
true that in high winds few applications 
are found to be effective? And is it not 
true that the scales have not been killed 
while under a protecting coat while in 
the form of an egg? 
Prof. Gossard—Measuring will cause 
a little difficulty at first. We marked off 
ounce doses on a tape line and used it to 
measure both over the tent and around. 
Thus having a mathematically correct 
reading of amount of dose until we could 
make a safe estimate from observation. 
The exact dose is not a matter of such 
great importance as you might infer. 
That is, an orange tree will stand a good 
deal more, for instance, than a June 
peach would do. So that a little over 
or a little under the dose would not 
make so much difference as you might 
think. 
Second, in relation to the use of the 
tent in high wind, it would be a little 
hard to use those large bell tents in a 
very high wind; and in using the single¬ 
sheet tent, if you were to go on the 
windward side of the tree it would prob¬ 
ably help you instead of hindering. I 
think the great objection to wind is 
likely to be from the effect upon the 
density of the gas. That is, the wind is 
apt to drive the gas from one side of the 
tent over to the other, and make it more 
dense on that side. 
In relation to the egg of the white fly, 
I cannot tell you positively from experi¬ 
ment what will happen to it. During 
the winter season when we did our ex¬ 
perimenting, you cannot find an egg un- 
hatched. Every white fly egg is hatch¬ 
ed at this season, and no other eggs are 
laid until spring, so there are only larvae 
and pupae. I will say there is hardly 
one chance in a thousand that the eggs 
would escape. There are very few 
insect eggs that are not killed by the gas. 
The red spider’s eggs, I believe, are un¬ 
affected by it. 
Mr. Porcher—The reports from Cali¬ 
fornia have shown that they have not 
killed the eggs of the red scale. 
Prof. Gossard—That is, you mean 
they have not been exterminated abso¬ 
lutely? 
Mr. Porcher—No, sir ; that they were 
