Blight of the Pineapple, 
BY E. N. BROWN, OF PUNT A GOR DA. 
Mr. President and Members of the Flor¬ 
ida State Horticultural Society: 
As I am a young man in the pineapple 
business, I feel somewhat timid in pre¬ 
senting to this intelligent body a few of 
my thoughts on the pineapple disease 
called blight, especially since so many 
learned professors have been racking 
their brains to find the cause and remedy 
for this devastating malady. 
But then, we should all be willing to 
be laid on the altar of criticism until this 
mysterious disease is fathomed. 
In presenting our thoughts let us look 
into the anatomical or physiological 
structure of the plant, in a small way, be¬ 
fore entering upon the disease proper. 
We notice at the base of the plant, after 
removing a few of the basal leaves, there 
are eyes for root sprouts something sim¬ 
ilar to the petals. The roots always start 
from these eyes and nowhere else, as 
there are no other places for them to 
start from. These roots grow long and 
slender like a shoe-lace, without any 
branches, absolutely, but are covered all 
along with fibrous feeders. These feed¬ 
ers are attached to the main lateral in a 
way peculiar to the pineapple plant, 
much like the slips and suckers growing 
on the main stalk of the plant, both of 
which have their origin in potato-like 
eyes. These feeders are as easy to de¬ 
tach from the lateral as the slips and 
suckers are from the main stalk. In 
making this comparison, size considered 
thrown in. 
I believe we all agree that the disease 
we call blight is a root trouble; that is, 
improper conditions of the roots. As 
these roots are not in condition to give 
the plant the proper food to sustain life, 
the plant turns yellow and dies. Now, 
I claim that anything causing the death 
of these roots will necessarily also cause 
this improper condition, and so they are 
unable to impart the life fluid to the 
plant, which causes this so-called blight, 
which merely means starvation, in my 
humble opinion. 
And the causes for the death of the 
roots, you will readily see, might be 
many, such as worms or insects, moles, 
scuffle hoe, too much caustic fertilizer, 
too much or not enough of air around 
the roots, and the last Til name, but not 
least by any means, stagnant water, 
which is more far-reaching than all the 
rest combined. 
But this brings us to the proper soil 
condition for a pinery, which belongs to 
the subject of pineapple growing; but I 
shall not touch upon that here, but con¬ 
fine my paper to this so-called blight. 
Cut a root off at the body of the plant; 
that root never starts again. Cut it off 
a piece from the plant; the remaining 
root may feed the plant to the extent of 
