102 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
bud wood was infected with citrus canker. 
The Mediterranean fruit fly was spread 
to a new section of Australia by passen¬ 
gers throwing infested fruit out of the 
windows of the train. It is a wonder that 
some pest has not been introduced into 
the lower East Coast and the Keys by just 
such a method. For years the Cubans 
have been coming to the States by the 
thousands. Many of them are high livers, 
and charter Pullmans to take them from 
Key West to New York, bringing large 
quantities of fruits and other provisions 
with them to eat en route. The most nat¬ 
ural thing in the world to do when one has 
bitten into a fruit and found that it had 
been claimed first by a lot of fat worms 
is to throw it away. Such fruit thrown 
out of a car window is more than likely 
to fall near a grove where the maggot, 
after completing its cycle, finds close to 
hand plenty of its favorite hosts in which 
the eggs are deposited. An infestation so 
started could exist in some sections for 
years before becoming noticed, and by 
that time the pest would be so firmly es¬ 
tablished that eradication would be impos¬ 
sible, and control a mere make-shift. 
In addition to these ways of obtaining 
a foothold, the pests find lots of people 
ready and eager to help them locate new 
fields to work in. There is hardly a per¬ 
son in this audience who has not, at one 
time or another, violated some rule of the 
Plant Board prohibiting the movement of 
plants. Most of the violations have been 
unintentional. It seems perfectly legal, 
when one has a very fine plant or tree and 
wants to give it to a friend, to dig it up 
and carry it in an automobile or train to 
the place where it is to be set out. Others 
think that the regulations of the Nursery 
Department are entirely too strict, and 
should not be enforced. You will be in¬ 
terested to know that the nursery inspec¬ 
tion system as worked out by the nursery 
inspector has attracted the notice of all 
the inspection and quarantine officials in 
the country, and several of the states are 
reorganizing their forces in an effort to 
get the same results as are secured by the 
Plant Board. How the Plant Board has 
to fight against the introduction of pests 
by short-sighted people who live in the 
State, the following letter will serve as an 
illustration. The man who wrote the let¬ 
ter lives in one of the most highly devel¬ 
oped sections of the State, and a section in 
which a great interest is being taken in 
avocado growing. In addition to this let¬ 
ter, another one along the same lines was 
written to a nurseryman in Cuba: 
l 
-, Florida, Oct. 20, 1917. 
To the Leading Fruit Dealer, Brownsville, 
Texas. 
Dear Sir: I want to buy hundreds of 
thousands of seeds of avocadoes, I will 
pay $25.00 a 1,000-seed barrel up, F. O. 
B. on railroad at Brownsville. 
Are there any avocado seeds sold in the 
town across the river? Why can’t you 
pay small boys 10 cents a 1,000 to slip the 
seeds over to Texas? 
There is a rule to prohibit bringing in 
the fruit or seed, but it seems to me that 
small boys could get the seed over in small 
lots. Why is it not easy also to hide small 
sacks, say of a peck, in the middle of 
