TWENTY FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 121 



the black stream of Japan has the same effect on the Pacific coast that 

 the gulf stream does on the Atlantic. I should say, though, that it was 

 very likely to spread in your latitude. 



Mr. Morrill: Wasn't that a very proper thing, if there vras a question- 

 able climate for the San Jose pest, for him to test the matter by locating 

 himself on the experimental grounds? I don't suppose he had a fair show 

 though there, so far as climate is concerned; they probably made it too 

 warm for him. 



31r. J. J. Harrison: This idea of Prof. Webster, of having govern- 

 mental supervision of this matter of insect pests, I think is a good one, 

 and not only ought to apply to that, but many other things that the 

 state assumes as its prerogative. I, for one, am heartily in favor of the 

 idea of the general government taking this matter into its hands, and en- 

 forcing such laws as are adapted to destroy or check the various insects 

 that are preying upon our fruits. I should think the national govern- 

 ment ought to take hold of this matter and assume the entire control, not 

 only of precautions against the introduction of insect pests, but also of 

 the keeping in check of our native pests. 



Mr. S. 1). Willard: I have been very highly interested in the paper 

 that Prof. Webster has given us. I think he has suggested some opin- 

 ions rather in advance of the rest of us, but we must have some leaders, 

 some who keep just a little ahead of us, because the masses of us are in 

 the dark, anyway. Now, I have suffered greatly, not so much from my 

 own neglect as from my indifferent and neglectful neighbors who have 

 kept hedge rows and old orchards and everything else, as breeding 

 places for everything in the way of noxious insect life. I have pleaded 

 with them, but you might as well talk to the town pump. That is just 

 about all there is to it. They are absolutely indifferent; they don't mean 

 to be bad; they are the kindest and best neighbors in the world, ready 

 to lend anything they have (or borrow anything you have); but that is 

 the typical man as you find him scattered throughout my state. We have 

 enough of them, anyway, and I presume you will find them everywhere; 

 and we are suffering today from such causes more than we are from any 

 neglect of our own. I now speak of intelligent fruitgrowers. But what 

 are you going to do about it? We are a slow, conservative set down in 

 New York. We have to get away to get new ideas, and the further east 

 you get the worse it is. It has been the most difficult thing in the world 

 for us, in the state of New York, to get a law passed (it is now in opera- 

 tion) for the destruction of black knot, yet there is no place in the world 

 where they have suffered from it to the same extent. I can remember 

 when the Hudson river was lined, all along the banks, with the most beau- 

 tiful plum orchards you ever saw. I took my cue from what I saw there; 

 and yet, today, there isn't a single live plum orchard on the banks of the 

 Hudson, but you can ride as far as you please and find fence rows and 

 relics innumerable of the old orchards, filled with black knot. They are 

 unwilling to burn up what they have left. Cultivation of the plum and 

 sour cherry on the Hudson is hard to handle. If there had been a good 

 man there, up to times, and with the right ideas, his surroundings and 

 environment were of such a character that he would have been powerless, 

 and so the thing has gone, and we are suffering upon the lines indicated 

 by Prof. Webster. A few years ago, I myself determined that there 



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