TWENTY FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. Ill 



pests that are brought to this country do not bring with them their natu- 

 ral enemies that hold them in check and prevent serious damage by them 

 in their native homes; and v hen established here, and before our native 

 insects learn that they are fit food for them, they work their ravages un- 

 restricted. It does not require any great ability to at once see that, if 

 we can bring these natural enemies to this country and place them where 

 they will find their natural hosts in abundance, they will follow the same 

 course that they did at home, and overcome them. But when we go to a 

 foreign country and get insects to prey on others that are indigenous 

 here, and with which those imported have had no previous knowledge 

 {do not know that they are suited for eating) you have an entirely different 

 pr'^blem; and the chances are that such importations will fail, because 

 the strangers will perish of hunger before they can adapt themselves to 

 new and strange kinds of food. In the case of the cottony cushion scale 

 of the orange, Icerya purcliasi Maskell, it was found that Australia was its 

 native home, from which it was brought to California, but that it was 

 far less destructive there than in America, thus showing that something 

 was holding it in check in its island home. These natural enemies were 

 investigated by direction of our government, found, and imported to Cali- 

 fornia, where they at once began to feed upon the pest; and, finding an 

 abundance of food, increased so enormously as to overcome the scale and 

 save the orange industry of that state. But had the Australian govern- 

 ments attempted to introduce ins<!cts from this country to destroy it there, 

 they would more than likely have failed. I mention this because I am 

 so often asked why we can not import insects to kill such other insects 

 as the striped cucumber beetle, squash bug, and canker worm. In the 

 one case we are aiding nature, while in the other we are going directly 

 contrary to her well-established usages. 



In your discussions, gentlemen, I will ask you to confine yourselves 

 directly to this phase of the subject of injurious insects (those that are 

 being or have recently been imported) because in a second paper I shall 

 deal with those that are natives of this country, or have been with us so 

 long that they have become thoroughly naturalized and acclimated. 



OUR HOME-GROWN PESTS, 



Under this caption I shall include only insect obstacles, as there are far 

 too many others with which the fruitgrower has at present to contend, to 

 admit of even an annotated list in a paper of the customary length. It 

 seems to me that horticulture includes within its scope every natural 

 science known under the sun. The horticulturist must be a botanist, 

 entomologist, ornithologist, meteorologist, chemist, and goodness only 

 knows what else, in order to profit by the elements among which he is 

 placed, and with which he must contend, or from which he derives his 

 profit. Science can do much to enlighten him, but outside of them all 

 there must be an unfailing supply of "gumption" on his part, as well as 

 a disposition toward thorough effort and prompt action. Some men are 

 scientific without knowing it, and would deny the charge of being such. 

 One of the most practical and successful fruitgrowers of my acquaintance 

 is comparatively uneducated, and I have often wondered what he would 



