FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
43 
perhaps I was the cause of this Standing 
Committee on Insects and Diseases be¬ 
ing originated, largely for the purpose 
of studying blight, and we got the Gov¬ 
ernment to send down experts here to 
study it, and they, up to the freezes of 
, 94~’95, had studied every part of the 
tree, leaf, bark, etc., and they had not 
yet got any light as to the cause of it or 
any possible cure, but they had many 
experiments on foot to test the diseased 
trees and learn its nature, and if it had 
not been for the freeze I think that we 
should have found whether the disease 
was in the root or branches, bark or sap, 
and possibly found out what was the 
cause. The blight is with us yet, and it 
is the most serious disease we have to 
contend with. The Government then 
took their experts North, expecting to 
carry on the work from there, but from 
lack of appropriations the work has been 
mostly dropped. We must make an ef¬ 
fort to have it taken up again. 
The President—An appropriation has 
been made which becomes effective the 
first of July and the work will be re¬ 
sumed. 
Mr. Porcher—I would like to know 
if anyone has ever found blight on low 
hammock land? 
Mr. Waite—We have found in laying 
our under-drains a layer of rock about 
three or four inches thick, which covers 
over an area of about forty acres. Last 
year we picked twenty-five boxes from 
those trees. 
Mr. Porcher—As a matter of fact, I 
think the “blight” is found on all soils 
except very low hammock. We are 
growing trees that are old enough to 
have blight, but I have yet to recall a 
case of low hammock with blight. 
THE WHITE FLY. 
Mr. Reasoner—The white fly in our 
neighborhood seems to have been about 
caught up with by the different fungi, 
and we no longer fear it, and the best 
proof of that is that there are one hun¬ 
dred acres near us being planted with 
citrus trees. In most of the groves 
near us we immediately caught up with 
the spread of the white fly. There is 
practically very little of it there. In 
fact, it is about gone. The longest time 
that any of our planters has had the 
white fly has been about two years, and 
there is not one of the groves but what 
has been cleared of white fly. I can say 
that the Foster groves are where the 
white fly first came from, and the Foster 
groves have turned out from eight to 
ten thousand dollars worth of fruit. 
There has been no spraying there what¬ 
ever. We sprayed for several years 
without success. 
Mr. Waite—Speaking of spraying, we 
had about sixty acres that we found last 
year was covered with white fly, small 
trees about six feet high, and I was talk¬ 
ing with quite a number of gentlemen 
who had sprayed, and we came to the 
conclusion that we would try spraying. 
We did so in November and December, 
using the rosin wash. In January we 
gave it another application and in the 
spring the white fly was on the wing, and 
we examined the trees and found no 
white fly excepting on large trees. 
Question—What w$s the extent of the 
damage done during the two years that 
the white fly was present? 
Mr. Waite—There was only partial 
loss of fruit. Where the white fly was 
worst the trees dropped part of the crop. 
