50 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
similar to gummosis, although I do not 
think it is the same thing. I was once 
very much alarmed, for the reason that 
gummosis seemed to have gotten my nur¬ 
sery, but it soon healed over and there 
was no harm done. 
Prof. Rolfs: I know there is no one 
here who can appreciate the amount of. 
work Prof. Fawcett had to do to come to 
this scientific conclusion. However, there 
is no one here who undervalues the con¬ 
clusion he has come to. He has proved 
it is due to a specific agent he has dis¬ 
covered. I think Prof. Fawcett is on 
good, solid ground to getting a practical 
and profitable remedy which heretofore 
we could not have gotten without great 
expenditures of money, and then only in 
an approximate way. The knowledge of 
this disease has been carried to this point; 
now he is ready to go ahead with the 
practical side of it and find out what is 
the best remedy. 
I merely wished to call attention to this, 
Mr. Chairman, that the talk consumed 
only a few minutes, while it took nearly 
twelve months to give him the knowl¬ 
edge to make that talk. In a few minutes 
he told you what he had discovered about 
gummosis of the peach, but he did not 
tell you that it has baffled the scientists 
from California to New York and south 
to Florida, and this is the first time it has 
been definitely proven what the agent is. 
Dr. Richardson: A line of thought 
has been suggested to me by a remark 
dropped by Mr. Gillette. You remember 
that he said that it was something like a 
man with impure blood that broke out in 
boils.. Having practiced medicine for 
thirty years, and having treated people 
for boils, I want to say that we know, 
now, that impure blood is not the cause 
of boils. We know that boils are caused 
by microbes that come from without. 
It occurs to me that this is true in everv 
ar 
one of these diseases we have been dis¬ 
cussing, of citrus and other fruit trees. 
They have not come up from the soil. 
The disease has come into the tree from 
other sources; in Mr. Gillette’s experi¬ 
ence, the inoculated knife. The old-time 
surgeon used to introduce more diseases 
than he cured by the use of his infected 
hands and unclean instruments. 
A short time ago, I was advised by 
self-proclaimed experts to treat my trees 
with remedies applied to the soil. I know 
better, now. If you stop to think a mo¬ 
ment, you will know that these things do 
not go that way. The best of all germi¬ 
cides, the most potent, and the cheapest,, 
is God’s sunlight. Sunlight destroys 
more germs than anything else. Next 
comes water. Water, and then the best 
known germicide is pure, dry earth. These 
three are the strongest combination of 
germ-killers known. 
One of the first things a grower should 
do, is to protect his trees by means of 
proper cultivation of the soil. Keep it 
clean. Keep the soil stirred up so that 
the other two agents may get at it. Let 
the sun and the water and the dry earth 
come to the relief of the diseased tree,, 
and they will do more than anything else 
I know of. The sanitarian today is a suc¬ 
cessful practitioner, and the sanitary 
grower is the most successful in treating 
the diseases we have been discussing. Pre¬ 
vention is better than cure, any time. 
Keep the germs away from your fruit 
and it will carry to market without rot¬ 
ting. If you can keep away from your 
