212 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



iued the trees specified in a written complaint, they have no more work to do 

 until another complaint is made. If there is much apathy on the part of the 

 people as regards the execution of the law, this section (3) will make it a dead 

 letter. If anything more is needed to make this law difficult of execution, it will 

 be found in section 8. ^Ye forbear to put any construction upon it, as we have 

 never made the study of the law a specialty, and think it too complicated for 

 any one but an expert. In view of these difficulties you will ask : Has this 

 law accomplished nothing? AVe answer: It has accomplished much, very 

 mucli. We wish it had accompished more, but are thankful for small favors. 

 Law is respected and obe5^ed by different persons for different reasons. Some 

 out of respect to the authority of the State and the good of society, readily 

 comply witli every legal enactment. Others are influenced by fear, having no 

 special regard to justice or equity; while others still are greatly influenced by 

 the benefits which may accrue to them through obedience. While human 

 nature is what it is, that law will be most faithfully obeyed which appeals most 

 fully to all these motives. A good citizen does not wish to be known as an 

 outlaw. He is jealous of his honor as well as of his rights. Hence, if there 

 is a strong public sentiment in favor of any well-meaning law, few men will 

 stand out openly against it. 



This law on the yellows is evidently a new kind of legislation. Even our 

 law-makers seem to have been feeling their way along as if they were traveling 

 a new road. And it is indeed a new thing for a legislative enactment to send 

 men into our orchards and direct them to cut down fruit-trees — trees that have 

 been planted by our own hands, watched and trimmed with a special interest, 

 and cultivated from year to year with tender care. At first it looks like an 

 invasion of personal rights, and some have been ready to say, *'It may be law, 

 but is it equity?'' The first impulse of not a few fruit-growers, who had only 

 a limited knowledge of the 3^ellows, one 3^ear ago, was that the law of suppres- 

 sion was unjust and oppressive. Viewed without regard to the facts as they 

 appear in the history of fruit-growing where this disease has prevailed, the 

 impulse of resistance might have a semblance of justification. And hence we 

 see why it is that there have been numerous threats of resistance, even to the 

 act of shooting the commissioner who should dare to touch a tree. A prevail- 

 ing sentiment of this kind in any community where the yellows exists would 

 make this law entirely inoperative ; and were it not for charging honorable 

 men with duplicity, we might conclude that this law was framed without any 

 backbone, so as to bow readily to any public sentiment where it might be 

 called npon to do its work. If all were in favor of extirpating diseased trees, 

 the law would be executed by common consent; if all or nearly all were 

 opposed to it, there would be no power on the throne to make it effective. 

 Yet this law, with all of its inherent weakness, has accomplished very much 

 through the influence of a healthy public sentiment. The importance of 

 destroying diseased trees has so pervaded the minds of fruit-growers in the 

 ''peach belt" that commissioners have been able to go beyond the law and 

 examine orchards without legal authority, and in most instances have their 

 requests complied with in the most cheerful manner. Our people say to their 

 commissioners, ''Go through our orchards and mark every diseased tree and 

 we will cut them down." And not a few cut down diseased trees before the 

 commissioner has the opportunity of an examination. The idea that there is 

 any value in a tree that has the yellows, has almost entirely given way to the 

 more rational one, that it is a nuisance, injurious to the man who owns it, and 

 to all who have peach orchards around it. 



