The Florida agriculturist., 1906-03-14

prS' institutes. ever came to California
And the damages he caused was not
the result of premeditatiOn, bur from
a lack of knowledge of the subject he
was officially empowered to teach.
And these injuries to the citrus groves
by the use of diStillate cannot be ac-
curately measured today. Sufficient
time has not yet elapsed to make it
possible to form Il correct estimate.
AS an illustration of the damages
caused by the application of distillate
let us take the Riverside district,
where the spray pump was so fOrcibly
brought into play by one of Prof.
Cooks most devoted followers, HOrh-
cultural Commissioner Cundiff. Since
its introduction. the fruit has deteriOr-
ated in quality. with a corresponding
decrease in price; the trees have been
weakened to such a degree as to make
them incapable of bearing full crops,
and with no diminutiOn in the crops
of scale pests. To what extent the
trees have been injured by diStillate
time alone must solve; for the damage
is not confined to stripping them Of
leaves but extends to the roots as well.
This part of the injuries is the most
difficult to overcome; and i'll cases
where diStillate has been applied for
any great length of time it perhaps
never can be. for once the roots of n
tree are affected the only practical
remedy is TO dig up and replace it
with one free of disease. Even i'll
cases where small percentage of
distillate was used the trees suffered
almost to an equal extent from the
ravages of scale pests which sapped
their vitality.
The application of hydrOcyanic gas
not only gives the best results in the
control of insect pests as. Prof
Clarke scientifically observed, but it
is also stimulant to the trees. This
is Il fact no longer disputed by those
who have watched the operation. 1T
increases the vigOr of trees, with bet
ter and cleaner fruit as Il logical re-
suit. How far it is also Il fertilizer
is yet to be determined, but that it is
to Il more or less extent is becoming
recognized 10y practical hOrticulturists.
From what has already been demon
strated we venture the prediction that
in the near future the use of cyanide
viii become one of the most important
essentials in the successful production
of citrus fruits. not alone for control
ling insect pests but for reasons here
merely mentioned.
Notwithstanding the damaging eff
fects of the erroneous, Illogical and
unScientifc theories advanced by Prof.
Cook. Commissioner Cundiff and
others of like character. for the con-
troll of scale pests, the intelligent
growers are now fully conscious of
the truth. so often iterated and reitera
ted in these pages, that the salvation
of the fruit industry is in the practice
of fumigatiOn. The more extensively
it is adopted and scientifically applied,
greater will be the profits derived.
Much has been said by the advO-
Gates of the spray pump about che
cheapness of spraying as compared
with fumigatiOn. Let us show the
fallacy of this claim. In San Berna-
dino county this year 767 ID acres
have been fumigated at a cost of
S16.S2 ID per acre Included in this
number of acres were large and small
trees.
At the Los Angeles county farm ID
acres, containing / 1,119 trees, have been
fumigated. The expense was: -Four
hundred and thirty-seven pounds of
cyanide, at 24 cents per pound, S104SS;
S73 pounds of acid at / J-S cents per
pound, S1420; cost of labor 110.7O;
| total $219.7S; average per acre,
SI231 ID