92 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
honest, intelligent work is done in this 
line. 
The first thing is to get the insects, and 
probably while we are on the hunt we will 
find more and better fungi also. But to 
do this, we must have good men, and their 
salary and traveling expenses must be 
paid. This will take “money 1 ’ which has 
been and still is the real problem of the 
whitefly problem, and its solution is of 
an educational nature. If an automobile 
club wishes a $100,000 speedway, all it 
needs to do is to teach the farmer to con¬ 
sider the investment a good one, and it 
gets it. If any other interest wishes a few 
thousand or a few hundred thousand, a 
little missionary work among the agricul¬ 
tural classes, who directly or indirectly 
pay most of the taxes, will usually give 
the desired results. Now we must get our¬ 
selves to believe that a little money spent 
in this way would be a good investment, 
and when the favored interests who are 
so jealous of any public funds they can¬ 
not use, cry extravagance and ask if we 
are not already taxed enough, we can 
plead that such investment would make 
us better able to pay taxes. What we at 
present need is not a large amount any¬ 
way. Half of the special tax on the far¬ 
mers in the sale of fertilizer and feed 
stamps, would do a lot of good. I don’t 
see why the ever alert, educational inter¬ 
ests, railroad interests, pension interests, 
draining interests, etc., have not observed 
this splendid opportunity to increase their 
revenue. But they may fear that if “old 
dobbin” got to feeling his oats he might 
kick out of harness. If they don’t give 
us a little benefit from the load we carry, 
let’s balk till they make it a whole lot 
lighter for us. 
DISCUSSION. 
* 
Dr. Berger: There are places where 
the whitefly is just starting and where it 
is necessary to apply quick measures to 
check it, and to keep it from spreading to 
the surrounding groves. In such 
cases spraying is recommended, or 
fumigation, depending upon the 
season of the year. There are lo¬ 
calities where the fungi have done excel¬ 
lent work; did as good work as would 
have been accomplished by ordinary 
spraying during the summer. In empha¬ 
sizing spraying as I have done this even¬ 
ing, I do not mean to retract anything 
from the emphasis formerly placed upon 
the fungi. One remedy will apply in one 
place or at one time, and another in an¬ 
other place or at another time, and the 
more I study this whitefly proposition,, 
the more I find that the results obtained 
by any few experiments in any one local¬ 
ity do not necessarily apply to all locali¬ 
ties in the State. The State is too large; 
the conditions are too different. 
Mr. Skinner: I want to ask Prof. Ber¬ 
ger one question. It is not exactly about 
the whitefly, but it is one of consequence, 
and that is, the scale. I mean all kinds 
of scale, but mostly the ordinary long^ 
