66 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
putting on strong power it would also 
wash off the honey dew of the whitefly. 
Prof. Rolfs—Yes, I think it would be 
washed off, but if you get a spray of this 
kind and get your trees in a thoroughly 
healthy condition it is going to be very 
hard on the whitefly. That nice, cool 
condition with lots of humidity in the 
atmosphere is very bad on his health. 
Dr. Richardson—Poor fellow ! 
Mr. Gillett—On behalf of the Society, 
then, I wish to ask the whitefly’s pardon. 
Mr. Meade—Has Mir. Gillett ever used 
this irrigation to protect from cold at 
night ? 
Mr. Gillett—No, sir The Bourlin Bros, 
at Citra had a big irrigation system on 
their place, using a large fire hose with a 
fire hose nozzle to distribute the water, 
and they had such power behind this 
stream that they could wash a tree out of 
the ground with it. When their trees were 
threatened in ’94 they experimented by 
spraying them. The result was that they 
had a beautiful crop of icicles. If I were 
going to use the water, however, in case 
of cold I should not care to have it above 
the trees but would prefer to have it near¬ 
er the ground. However, I wish to say in 
this connection that at Winter Haven we 
never have any cold. 
Mr. Harrington—I am a little familiar 
wjith the locality where Mir. Gillett is 
about to start his plant, and heard the dis¬ 
cussion about an inch of water on the 
ground being too much. I want to say that 
at one time we had a fall of five inches in 
one hour and fifteen minutes; ten min¬ 
utes afterwards there was practically no 
water in sight. 
Mr. Mead—I had an acre of young 
trees covered in and nozzles that threw 
water in a circle 40 feet in diameter. I 
found I could keep the temperature up to 
48 or 50 degrees when it was below freez¬ 
ing outside when it was covered up tight. 
However, the draw bars gave away at one 
corner where the cold could come in and 
the result was a crop of ice the next morn¬ 
ing. I took a photograph of this and the 
next week took another showing not a 
leaf or fruit in the enclosure. I think I am 
the only man who made anything out of 
that freeze, for I sent photographs up to 
an editor and he sent me a check for them 1 . 
Mr. Hart—I would like to inquire as 
to the effect of artesian water on the soil; 
whether it is injurious or not. At Day¬ 
tona they have been using artesian water 
for thirty years. I know about fifteen 
or twenty years ago Mr. -gave up 
the use of it and quite a number of others 
along the coast gave up the use and are 
using fresh water. It is long enough now 
for them to get results and I would be 
glad to hear from you. 
Miss White—I would say that artesian 
water is mighty good for crops. My fath¬ 
er had a good deal of experience along 
the East Coast and when we went to 
Hastings he said “Let’s take this little 
patch of ground and drive artesian wells 
and when we plant our Irish potatoes in 
December the first time it comes off cold, 
we will turn on the water and save our 
potatoes. Well, the cold wave came and 
we turned on the water and covered the 
field entirely with water. We kept it on 
for two days. The results were that there 
was a nice crop of potatoes in the adjoin¬ 
ing field. 
Dr. Van Dormer. I have had no prac¬ 
tical experience with artesian water here. 
Artesian water is usually hard water; 
