112 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
persimmon trees; you will find it in ma¬ 
ple trees, and it causes an untold amount 
of damage. 
Mr. Lamont: I have a number of the 
Tane Nashi variety, and they are all 
bearing except one. That is large 
enough to bear. It has bloomed three 
seasons in succession, and dropped the 
bloom every time. 
Mr. Hume: I have my doubts that it 
is Tane Nashi. 
Mr. Stewart: I would like to know if 
any one on the committee, or anyone 
else, knows about the cherry tree. Has 
ii been tried in Florida, and what about 
it? I know nothing about it in Florida, 
and have been unable to find anyone who 
did. I was looking through a catalogue, 
and I sent for two of every kind, to see 
what the result would be. 
Mr. Griffing: In Jacksonville we get 
lots of homeseekers coming in. They 
want to know about currants, cherries, 
apples, gooseberries, and things like that. 
I tell them if they must have those things 
they had better go right back where they 
came from—where those things grow. 
Mr. Dade: I have grown a cherry, 
grafted, ten or fifteen high high, as fine 
as you ever saw. But the intersection 
cracked open, very much as you have 
seen the persimmon do. I suppose it was 
some fungous trouble—am I right? 
There is no trouble at all to get the cher- 
ry to start on the wild stock, but after 
two or three years, it goes back. 
I would like to ask about a disease of 
the fig; a blight, where the fruit drops 
off and extremities of the branches' are 
affected something like the withertip of 
the orange. Before the fruit ripens, it 
begins to blight. I never saw it until last 
year. 
Mr. Hume: The trouble is very likely 
due to a severe infestation of the root 
knot which has been gathering force and 
finally got the upper hand of the tree. 
It will probably kill the tree. 
Mr. Webster; In regard to the per¬ 
simmon again; I have lived here thirty 
years, and long ago my father grafted 
some buds upon the native persimmon 
stock, the three or four varieties you 
have spoken of as being successful. As 
some of you know, the persimmon is a 
great tree to sprout from the roots. The 
original grafts have all died out, but my 
father has re-grafted from the sprouts, so 
that we have always had a continuous 
persimmon crop for the last twenty-five 
years. 
Mr. Hume; I have had some exper¬ 
ience with the cherries, and my advice 
is to leave them alone. You will never 
get any fruit. 
Mr. Marks; Some one has recom¬ 
mended the beggar weed as a cover crop. 
Do you know any ills that come from the 
use of beggar weed? 
Mr. 'Griffing: I have never noticed 
any. Of course, it is going to increase 
the fungus, but that will help the scale 
situation. The growth of the beggar 
weed in the orchard is, of course, condu¬ 
cive to a humid condition, and is benefi¬ 
cial rather than detrimental. I never no¬ 
ticed any detrimental effects on account 
of the beggar weed in the peach orchard. 
Mr. Gaitskill: In connection with the 
persimmon being short lived; twenty- 
five years ago I grafted my first persim¬ 
mon in stock three or four inches in di- 
