FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
01 
standing this drawback most of the pion¬ 
eer work was done by these men, as well 
as some very excellent recent work. 
The discovery of several new fungus 
diseases of the whitefly with practical 
methods of spreading therm; the discovery 
of two' species of the whitefly, and the dif¬ 
ference in habits, and means of control- 
ing them, have been made by the Experi¬ 
ment Station, which has also made a gen¬ 
eral study of the spraying subject, in 
which it was found that any good spray 
will kill all the young larvae that it hits, 
but the pupae were found cpiite resistant. 
But a few new sprays seem promising. 
All this, including fumigation, the fun¬ 
gi, and spraying, with a little experience 
nearly eliminates the damage from 
whitefly, under favorable conditions. 
This information is worth one hundred 
times what it cost, besides giving us well 
learned men, and it did not cost us any¬ 
thing. If “all things come to those who 
wait,” the rest of the information we 
need so much will come to us, and may 
come free. But I am of the opinion that 
it would be better to secure the necessary 
funds and go after it, for our cheap wait 
is costing us millions of dollars, when 
with even a $25,000 annual appropriation 
from the State, we would probably in a 
few seasons see the dreaded fly no longer 
a pest of any importance, at least no 
worse than it now is in India and Japan, 
where it has been present for many years 
without serious results so far as we know. 
If we get the money, and we must get it, 
its use should be at the discretion of the 
director of the Experiment Station, and 
the Executive Committee of this Society. 
This sort of arrangement would not be 
good politics but it would be good busi¬ 
ness. 
Our native fungus in most cases does 
good work; but when we have to combat 
a fungus disease, as scaly bark, wither- 
tip, stem end rot, etc., the friendly and 
unfriendly fungi must live or die to¬ 
gether. So our most urgent need is an 
insect capable of keeping down the fly and 
scale, while we exterminate the pest fun¬ 
gi. Such insects may, and probably do, 
exist in Cuba, South or Central Ameri¬ 
ca, Asia, or Africa, where many species 
of whitefly, and many insects and fun¬ 
gus enemies to them exist, and where no 
competent person has studied the subject. 
When the right insects are found they 
must be introduced here; and may be, 
taught to be bird wise. The bird problem 
is a serious one in this line of work. Most 
of our birds are either harmless or friend¬ 
ly to the farmer. Even some, like the cat 
bird, that are generally condemned are 
decidedly in this class. All the scientific 
work, on which our literary friends base 
their beautiful songs to the farmer, how¬ 
ever, was done in places so remote, and 
where conditions were so different to 
ours, that it is of little value here, and 
I am sure that a competent unprejudiced 
observer (if there be such) would re¬ 
verse most of the claims in favor of pro¬ 
tecting the jaybird class, as they eat many 
insect eating bugs besides scattering weed 
seed, and eating valuable fruit, vegeta¬ 
bles, grain, etc., for the protection of 
which we are very largely dependent on 
bugs, wasps, and spiders. But this is an 
immense task and we will not be able to 
properly protect the good birds till some 
