92 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
plants to be moved from the infested dis¬ 
trict. Owing to the small number of in¬ 
spectors at this time, a strict surveillance 
over the illegal movement of plants could 
not be maintained. Prominent individuals 
moved infested plants from their palatial 
residences in the Vedado to their no less 
pretentious country homes. In this way 
the black fly reached Alquizar, about fifty 
miles southwest of Habana. Control op¬ 
erations were always started in the center 
of infestation and not on the outskirts. 
Thus, while a fair attempt at spray con¬ 
trol was being made by the authorities in 
the heavily infested districts of Habana, 
by the time they thought they had the sit¬ 
uation fairly under control it had gotten 
out of hand and the outlying districts were 
becoming infested. I am not pretending 
to follow a strict chronological order but 
I am picking out the salient features of 
the black fly campaign as it was conduct¬ 
ed in Cuba. 
Provincial inspectors were appointed to 
make inspections that came their way and 
to make periodical reports to the head of¬ 
fice in Habana. I am going to cite only 
one instance of the efficiency of these Pro¬ 
vincial inspectors. Cienfuegos is about 
the fourth or fifth largest city in the 
island, located in Santa Clara Province, 
very important as a seaport on the south¬ 
ern coast. The inspector for this province 
was supposed to make an inspection every 
six months of all the nurseries in the 
province, especially those around Cien¬ 
fuegos, of which there were some four or 
five large and important ones. His re¬ 
ports were always the same, that is, to the 
effect that he could never find the black 
fly in any of the gardens and nurseries 
inspected and that he would recommend 
the garden for certification without the 
slightest delay, as the gardeners and nur¬ 
serymen were moving plants every day. 
Then one day two of the nurserymen 
wrote in to the Havana office and asked 
when we were to make the next inspection. 
They stated that the Provincial inspector 
had not been around as was his custom 
every six months and that they wished 
their certificates. One of them sent a few 
grapefruit leaves along in his letter and 
asked what was the bug attacking his cit¬ 
rus and what he should do to control it. 
It was the black fly. Charles Ballou, an 
American attached to the Bureau, was 
sent down to Cienfuegos to look into the 
matter and came back with the astound¬ 
ing report that all of the nurseries were 
full of the black fly and that plants had 
been freely offered for sale with the black 
fly on them. It happened that this Pro¬ 
vincial inspector was a mulatto chiropo¬ 
dist and that his appointment as inspector 
had been made as a political reward. 
Whether he was removed from office I 
cannot say, but as election time was draw¬ 
ing near and his services were needed in 
the coming campaign he was doubtless 
allowed to continue drawing his pay, but 
further inspections were made by inspec¬ 
tors from the head office. 
Another heavy infestation was found in 
the very geographical center of the island 
at Macagua in the grove of a Mr. Hodges. 
This infestation is not far from Ceballos, 
which is a citrus growing center operated 
largely by Americans. Most of the fruit 
grown here goes north by way of Nuevi- 
