98 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
whether the fruit became poisoned from 
flow of the sap through the twig to the 
inside of the fruit. You could not de¬ 
tect decay until you cut into it; the fruit 
was perfectly clean and normal to the 
eye outside. 
Mr. Stewart: I should like to know 
whether or not 'the stem-end rot of 
grapefruit and oranges left to rot on the 
ground, and the dead wood left to rot on 
the ground, tends to infect the top of 
the tree again. What is the danger ex¬ 
isting from those practices? 
Mr. Stevens: It is not a good prac¬ 
tice to leave infected fruit or wood any¬ 
where near your grove. The spores may 
be washed out into the soil and the wind 
blow them back into the tree. There is 
usually more or less dead wood in the 
tree, and when the spores reach it they 
develop and eventually get back into the 
top of the tree. 
Mr. Fee: Suppose there was i per 
cent, of loss due to melanose or stem- 
end rot in a grove. Would you advise, 
as a precaution for the future, to spray 
to combat these ills? 
Mr. Stevens: You might have i per 
cent, this year, and next year, io per 
cent., with an increase each year until it 
would be an unprofitable grove. It is 
not a good idea to have any of these 
diseases around. 
Dr. Berger: In regard to a spraying 
solution that will serve both as an insec¬ 
ticide and a fungicide, I think it was two 
years ago I tried to be emphatic in a talk 
before this Society that such a solution 
was needed, and needed badly. The 
point has been brought out again this 
3^ear. However, I have never had the 
time to carry on investigations along 
that line, and I presume no one else has. 
I wish to refer to a mixture of Bor¬ 
deaux and Whale Oil Soap. Mr. Samp¬ 
son tried them. He didn’t know they 
would not mix, so he went ahead and 
mixed them. He had a severe attack of 
withertip and wanted to keep it down, 
and he had trouble with scale insects. He 
watched them, and when he saw them 
coming on to the oranges, he sprayed 
with Bordeaux Mixture and Soap, and, 
as I remember, with success. It seemed 
to work pretty well. 
Mr. Sampson was in town yesterday, 
and he may be here today, and he may 
have something to say about this subject. 
Mr. Sampson: I was successful then 
and did control the withertip and con¬ 
trolled the scale at the same time. But 
now, I would recommend pruning. 
Mr. Stephens: How far will those 
spores drift in the air? What distance? 
The reason I ask is that there are a good 
many leaves dropping at certain times, 
and I thought they might be very fair 
fertilizer in other parts of the place. 
Mr. Stevens: In regard to the mela¬ 
nose fungus; I don’t know how far the 
spores might drift in the air. Spores o: ; 
other fungi have been known to drif 
from two or three up to eleven miles. 
Mr. Hume: Permit the Chair to mak< 
an observation along the line and alon| 
similar lines we have had at our previou 
meetings. 
One thing I gather, is the importano 
in handling not only this disease whid 
has been discussed this morning, bu 
many others, and that is, keeping dea< 
