84 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
at Miami continued the study of this 
mysterious trouble, but its cause has not 
yet been determined. Between $30,000 
and $40,000 has been expended upon it, 
and while much information as to the 
development and nature of the disease 
has been collected, most of this has been 
of a negative character as far as prac¬ 
tically useful results are concerned. There 
is need for a more thorough investigation 
of this trouble carried on regularly and 
systematically for a number of years. 
The investigation of a disease of this na¬ 
ture presents unusually great difficulties. 
The fact that it apparently takes at least 
seven years for a tree to develop symp¬ 
toms of the disease, and that blight oc¬ 
curs usually in large bearing trees, makes 
the investigation difficult. The amount 
of time needed for working out this prob¬ 
lem and the difficulties in the way, make 
the field a rather uninviting one for the 
scientist. A sufficient amount of money 
and a sufficient number of years for the 
working out of such a problem are things 
that it is almost impossible to secure un¬ 
der present conditions. We are expected 
to show results at once. What politician 
is willing to trust a scientist to work ten 
years before calling upon him to show 
them? Yet this time would probably be 
needed to attain definite results with 
citrus blight. 
In some respects the disease resembles 
peach yellows, and everyone who has fol¬ 
lowed the investigation of that disease 
knows that a great amount of money has 
been expended and years of study have 
been given to this trouble, but as yet 
there is no remedy discovered except the 
complete destruction of diseased trees. 
This too, is the only remedy yet known 
for blight, also called “wilt/’ of orange 
trees. The only treatment is to dig up 
and destroy the trees as soon as they show 
clearly that they are affected with blight. 
It is dangerous to dally with this disease; 
for while one is trying to cure one tree, 
the disease is likely to spread to others 
adjoining. 
BUCKSKIN. 
Grapefruit often develops a peculiar 
thickened and roughened appearance of 
the rind which is known by growers as 
buckskin or sharkskin. The rind be¬ 
comes abnormally thick and presents a 
scurfy rough appearance well character¬ 
ized by the word buckskin. This trouble 
was quite serious in (some places ilast 
season. It renders the fruit very infer¬ 
ior, and in many cases almost worthless. 
This trouble is probably due to some sur¬ 
face-growing fungus that works upon the 
outer cells and irritates the rind in such 
a way as to cause abnormal thickening. 
The real cause of the trouble is, how¬ 
ever, yet to be determined definitely. The 
trouble has not been sufficiently studied 
for us to be able to give any remedy 
based on experiments. The fact that the 
trouble appears to be due to a surface¬ 
growing fungus would indicate that Bor¬ 
deaux mixture would be an efficient pre¬ 
ventive. A few years ago a series of 
spraying experiments for the control of 
this disease was made by Prof. Rolfs in 
an orange grove where buckskin fruit 
had been abundant the year before. After 
the spraying had been done it was found 
that the buckskin did not appear that 
year even on the unsprayed plots, so that 
it was impossible to get any information 
from the experiment. This disease ap- 
