90 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The purpose of this paper is therefore 
to suggest a line of investigation and ex¬ 
periment that may prove fruitful of re¬ 
sults. It is work for the State or the 
National government rather than for the 
individual grower to undertake, yet the 
growers themselves can do much in the 
way of preliminary observation that will 
assist in clearing the ground for a syste¬ 
matic attack of the problem in the man¬ 
ner suggested. 
THE WHITEFLY PROBLEM. 
James E. Kilgore. 
Mr. President t Ladies and Gentlemen : 
I am obliged to admit that I know very 
little directly on the technical side of this 
subject that is new and that will interest 
you. My best efforts have failed to bring 
out new facts with the proofs attached, 
and my study of the subject convinces 
me that the individual efforts of any 
grower of limited time and means, how¬ 
ever observant he might be, will probably 
result the same way. But where the 
work is organized under an efficient head, 
with means to push it, the cumulative ef- 
ifect of the individual efforts may be of 
\very great value. 
I mean no reflection on the excellent 
work done by our experiment station 
rnen, or the gentlemen sent here from 
Washington. All that has been done in 
the past four years is due to them, and 
meager as the means were, especially 
those of the station, the results are far 
beyond what we had any reason to ex¬ 
pect, and make the most valuable donation 
I have known to come to any business 
that was willing to wait till it could get 
something for nothing. For incredible as 
it may seem, we as fruit growers, or as 
citizens of the State of Florida, have 
never given a penny to help this work. 
The national appropriation has given 
good results in improving fumigation and 
testing other work. Fumigation will be 
valuable to the progressive grower, if the 
less interested ones should be forced out 
of the business. If the cultivated plants 
were freed from fly in midwinter, there 
would be little fly left. It is claimed, 
that the woods are full of them, and that 
they would reinfest the groves in the 
spring, but I have failed to find a single 
citrus whitefly, in any stage, on a wild 
plant in midwinter. That there are a few 
such plants has been discovered by the 
Entomologist, but such plants could ea¬ 
sily be eradicated. 
The chief drawback with men from 
Washington, has generally been that they 
cannot stay here long enough. The ablest 
men living would need two or three years 
time to study local conditions, before they 
can do their best work. But notwith- 
