14 Report of State Board of Horticulture. 



horticultural system. 



The Legislature appropriates $4,500 to pay the annual expenses 

 01 our State Board of Horticulture, and the financial exhibit of the 

 Secretary of the Board, which accompanies this report, will show 

 lidw the fund is distributed. Out of this fund must be deducted the 

 Secretaiy's salary, $900, and the incidental expenses of his office, 

 the printing of bulletins, transportation, expenses in attending 

 semiannual meetings of the Board, as provided by law, postage, 

 etc., and in alternate years must pay for the half-tone illustrations 

 and the paper on which they are printed, and. in addition, for 2,000 

 copies of the biennial report, in order that there may be an ade- 

 quate number to supply the fruitgrower, agricultural, and horti- 

 cultural organizations. What is left of the appropriation (about 

 ■what one qualified man ought to receive) is divided among six com- 

 missioners to investigate, to educate, and to police some 96,000 

 square miles of territory. On a preceding page I have pointed out 

 tlie immense area of our horticultural districts, the smallest as 

 large as an Eastern State, the largest equal in size to a half dozen 

 of them. All that a commissioner can do is to make hurried visits 

 to fruit centers with little time for inspection, and none to see that 

 his notices for disinfection are complied with. Our quarantine 

 laws need but little change; we do, however, need to enforce them, 

 and in order to do this we must enlarge our horticultural system. 



The want of our fruit industry at the present time is thorough 

 and general inspection and enforcement of our laws made for its 

 protection. In 1902 our State Horticultural Society appointed a 

 committee to go to Salem and present a bill appropriating the 

 modest sum of $1,500 to pay the expenses of a deputy inspector at 

 Portland, and other towns where fruit is sold or shipped, with the 

 result that the Legislature struck out the appropriation, and then. 

 I believe, passed the bill, and as a consequence we still eat trash 

 and demoralize our markets, to the disgust of the man who cares 

 f(;r his orchard and raises clean fruit. I regret to say that Oregon 

 is far behind her neighbors in the protection of the fruit industry. 

 Let us examine their methods. 



The State of Washington has a eonnnissioner at large whose offi- 

 cial residence is at Tacoma. He is paid a salary of $2,000 per an- 

 num; incidental expenses, $1,000; office rent and printing of bul- 



