FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
87 
developed and it was remarkable to see 
how free from scale the groves kept. 
We used the red-headed, the white- 
headed and the black-headed fungi. I 
have used all three. The diminution of 
scale may have been due to some other 
cause; it may have been the lady birds, 
but it appeared to be the use of the fungi, 
I think that some of the people in the 
State are calling the gum disease scaly 
bark. The true scaly bark is found very 
little, if at all, outside of Hillsborough 
County. 
DISCUSSION. 
Mr. Temple—You say it takes seven 
years for this disease blight to develop 
in the tree after the seed is sown. Then 
you say it is contagious. When does the 
contagion take place; before it is shown in 
the tree from which the disease is taken, 
or afterwards? Suppose I have a tree 
I suspect of having blight. If I immediate¬ 
ly destroy that tree, root, branch and all, 
are the trees already infected or does the 
infection not take place until there is a 
further state of development of the dis¬ 
ease in the tree I have destroyed. 
Prof. Fawcett—I don’t know. Pos¬ 
sibly I have mis-stated that a little. Pos¬ 
sibly it is that the tree must be seven 
years old before it can take this disease. 
What do you think, Prof. Swingle? 
Prof. Swingle—I don’t know, either. 
As far as means of contagion are con¬ 
cerned, it has been suspected that the 
tree may have been infected through the 
flower. 
Now, before we adjourn I wish to say 
just one word about the blight. Next to 
the whitefly I don’t think anything is 
more generally feared in this state than 
the blight, for the reason that it does not 
spare an orange grower. He may be 
ever so careful about his method of fer¬ 
tilizing and treatment of the trees but 
still the blight comes, and it is most dis¬ 
couraging to find symptoms of this seem¬ 
ingly incurable disease. I wish merely to 
point out the fact that you have in this 
State a man who is eminently capable of 
treating just this disease. Now, you 
know how the government demands re¬ 
sults almost immediately after they have 
appropriated money for a certain pur¬ 
pose. Some sort of result must be shown 
in a specific time. It is entirely out of 
the question to get results on the blight 
in a short time. It simply can’t be done. 
I do believe, however, that the way is 
open. In case it is not found possible 
for a committee of this state to obtain 
the money from the department, I would 
suggest the possibility of utilizing the 
Adams fund. This is granted by the 
government for scientific research. They 
are not supposed to show immediate re¬ 
sults for the Adams fund. This is a sum 
of money exempt from the pressing de¬ 
mands for results. 
You understand I am speaking in a 
private capacity but have reason to be¬ 
lieve if a syndicate could raise as much as 
$2,000 or $3,000 per annum it would be 
possible to secure a grant from the Adams 
fund enough to get a man like Prof. Faw¬ 
cett, and he would have the liberty to 
work this problem out in his own good, 
