FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
33 
the publications of this Society, those 
of the Experiment Station, and the Bu¬ 
reau of Entomology, U. S. Department 
of Agriculture, in which something of 
value for the control of perhaps every 
insect pest known to exist in Florida 
can be found. Not all the recommen¬ 
dations will be found highly practical; 
were they so, that would be equivalent 
to stating that Entomologists were 
perfect. But this literature gives us 
the ground passed over, and if it point¬ 
ed out the useless methods only, it would 
still be of value. 
I wish to further emphasize two or 
three pieces of work that were accom¬ 
plished in Florida. One is the discov¬ 
ery of the kerosene-soap emulsion by 
H. G. Hubbard, back in the eighties. 
This made available for general use 
one of the best insecticides known. It 
is still with us, although it has been 
displaced for certain purposes by the 
lime-sulphur solution and by emulsions 
of heavier and cheaper oils. I believe 
it is safe to affirm, however, that kero¬ 
sene emulsion was the starting point, 
and gave the impetus to the compound¬ 
ing of the many emulsions and miscible 
oils, home-made and proprietary, that 
are now in use. Some of these are of 
great value and mark definite progress 
in insect control; but it was the discov¬ 
ery of kerosene emulsion that started 
the evolution. 
Another very valuable phase of in¬ 
sect control, not first started in Flor¬ 
ida, but most successful here, is that 
of the fungus diseases to which insects 
are subject. It was Prof. Rolfs who 
first discovered the efficacy of the red¬ 
headed scale fungus on San Jose scale. 
It was Dr. H. J. Webber who found 
the red and brown fungi destroying 
the whitefly. That the fungus diseases 
of scale insects (red-headed, white- 
headed and black fungus) are keeping 
the citrus and peach growers of the 
State from being put out of business 
by the scales is an undisputed fact. The 
same thing is true for the fungi and 
other diseases of the whiteflies of cit¬ 
rus. But for these fungus assistants, 
fruit-growing could be carried on only 
at great expense of spraying. Such 
was the experience in the thirties be¬ 
fore these fungus assistants had ap¬ 
peared or become greatly disseminated. 
That the fungus assistants which de¬ 
stroy the whitefly save the Florida 
growers $1,000,000 annually is prob¬ 
ably a very conservative estimate. And 
all with little or no effort on the 
part of the grower, who by a little 
effort could frequently greatly increase 
their efficacy. 
But what kind of history are we 
making at present? It should not be 
overlooked that the growers help make 
the history as well as the entomolo¬ 
gists. Let us first refer to the spore¬ 
spraying method of spreading and in¬ 
troducing the fungus diseases of white¬ 
fly larvae perfected by the Experiment 
Station during the past few years. 
During the summer of 1908, Mr. Frank 
Stirling, of DeLand, sprayed between 
8.000 and 9,000 citrus trees in DeLand 
and vicinity with spores of these fungi. 
During 1909 he and assistants treated 
about 127,500 trees, and during 1910 
between 750,000 and 800,000 trees. It 
appears that the fungus diseases of the 
whitefly must be spreading some- 
