342 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



are of uo value because ignorantly used. Too often they only cover 

 up one bad odor by another almost as bad. Forcing a little gas 

 through a keyhole into an infected room is worse than useless. It 

 is dishonest, for it offers safety where there is none, and it is 

 giving a stone where bread has been asked. Besides sunlight and 

 air, fire applied directly, or by means of baking infected objects, 

 or by steam or boiling water, and numerous chemicals, are absolute 

 disinfectants. 



It is not desired to conA^ey the idea that specific diseases (using 

 the word in its general sense) will be produced by uncleanliness, 

 but a general lowering of the bodily strength will surely be brought 

 about by a disregard to cleanliness of food and drink, and in this 

 lowered condition, disease easily overcomes the body. The dirt 

 most to be feared is the waste from our own bodies. To each class 

 of animals, its own excreta of every kind, i. e., waste of skin, lungs, 

 bowels, kidneys, is deadly poison. Free elimination is demanded 

 for this waste as it is formed; in no other w\ay can the highest 

 health be maintained. The dirt which lurks in dark, damp corners 

 is the kind to fear. Indeed, the trio, dirt, darkness and dampness, 

 invite the presence of another feared trio, disease, death and the 

 Devil. 



I have talked plainly about some unpleasant and unpalatable 

 truths. I fully believe that far more harm to health results from 

 impure water and unclean dairy products than from all the adulter- 

 ated and chemically preserved foods sold within the State, bad as 

 these may be. It is from lack of knowledge that the people perish, 

 while Legislators and Executive Officers too often strain at gnats 

 and swallow camels. 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON FRUIT AND FRUIT CULTURE. 



By J. F. BOYBR, Chairman. 



By reason of the State not providing as much as blank inquiries 

 to send out to every county of the State, your Committee has thus 

 htien disabled from getting the desired information and conse- 

 quently the facts here revealed are from the central portion of the 

 State. Inasmuch as the Horticultural Society met at Lancaster 

 the previous week, the Chairman of that body having been pro- 

 vided with blanks already alluded to, has thus been enabled to 

 make such a very excellent report of conditions and the fact that 

 that report is recorded in the year book would suffice. 



Your Committee would say, however, that the season just passed 

 has been a very remarkable one. The beginning of January, 1907. 

 had almost summer temperature, followed by severe cold 

 weather conditions thus destroying canes of nearly all varieties of 

 raspberries and blackberries and consequently the smallest crop 

 of game for a number of years. Cherries, also, were an entire fail- 



