FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
5i 
pruning shears and budding knife, the 
germs that are teeming in millions, you 
will have cleaner and better stock. Don’t 
look in the wrong place. Keep things 
clean, keep your soil stirred, and give Na¬ 
ture a chance to do better work. 
Mr. Gillette: These discussions are al¬ 
ways productive of results. We have 
found out something about boils. It has 
always been a question, it seems to me, 
since the dark ages, where is the best place 
to have boils. We have found out that 
we can pick the place, and all we have to 
do is to light on the right spot and make 
them come there. 
Now, there is no question but that san¬ 
itation, applied by a physician, is a won¬ 
derful cure for diseases that flesh is heir 
to, but I am not so sure about it when ap¬ 
plied to an orange tree. This question of 
orange growing is one which stumps us 
all. The Doctor has advised us to open 
up the soil and let in the air and water 
and sunshine. On the other hand, go in¬ 
to the dense hammocks where the orange 
trees grow naturally and you will find no 
sunshine, and it seems to me the trees are 
in a more perfect condition than where 
they are cultivated. 
I have found in every neighborhood, 
at least one man who insists on clean cul¬ 
tivation. He grows oranges, too, and 
fine ones. His next door neighbor be¬ 
lieves in cover crops and keeps the ground 
well protected from the sun, and he 
grows oranges, just as fine as the clean 
cultivation man. Another man goes still 
further and believes in letting the weeds 
have entire possession of his grove, and 
he succeeds, too. How these different 
methods all succeed stumps us, but they 
do. 
Mr. Connor: In Professor Fawcett’s 
paper he has a statement in relation to 
pruning the trees for stem-end rot. It 
seems to me this is a matter of rather 
grave importance to the growers who 
have stem-end rot in their groves, to 
know at what time the trees should be 
pruned with good results. Now, pruning 
out the dead wood when the tree is full 
of fruit would not be a good thing for 
the tree. I would like to have the Pro¬ 
fessor state, for the information of all 
of us, what he thinks to be the best time 
of the year to prune for stem end rot. 
I am looking for all the help I can get 
from people who know more about it than 
I do. 
Prof. Fawcett: The wither-tip fungus 
is in almost every grove in the state. Prof. 
Rolfs’ experiments some years ago, 
showed very plainly that there were two 
periods of the year when pruning can be 
most safely carried on. Those two times 
are in the dormant season in December 
and January and again in July, when the 
first growth of wood has somewhat hard¬ 
ened; and so I would say that for stem- 
end rot, also, we should, if possible, 
choose; those periods so that we will not 
have a possibility of withertip infection. 
If you prune for wither-tip when the new 
growth is putting out vigorously, you are 
liable to have some trouble with infection 
in this new growth. 
I would say right here that December 
and January for some of you who hold 
your fruit on the trees, would be a bad 
time. July would be a better time. 
Professor Rolfs can probably tell us 
more about it than anybody here. 
Prof. Rolfs: While I was carrying on 
the work on wither-tip, we found that 
