38 STATE HOKTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



a number of years in order to look after the city and protect the orchiirds 

 surrounding it. We are all surrounded by peach orchards, and have 

 man}' in the city, a large number of trees, and we have made a practice, 

 and we have supposed that it was absolutely necessary, to visit every 

 tree in the city; and if we had not done that the surrounding orchards 

 would have been destroyed. We have followed that practice, and one 

 season we took out over fifteen hundred trees in the city of Grand 

 Rapids alone, affected with yellows, and a large number of cases of 

 black-knot in plum, and also pear blight, and it could not have been 

 reached by any other system than that of the commissioners visiting 

 from city lot to city lot. We find isolated trees. 



Mr. Harris: Do you have any trouble in getting your bills audited? 



Mr. Cook: Not at all. No township can afford to refuse to audit the 

 accounts of commissioners if they have the interest of the business at 

 heart in their town. I have in mind a pretty prominent peach-^ower 

 who several years ago had yellows in his orchards. He was advised by 

 the Grand River Valley Horticultural society that the only remedy was 

 to take those out. He thought he could treat them; he had some remedy 

 that somebod}^ had come along and told him he could treat those trees 

 with, and there was no use of taking those out. The result was he 

 lost fifteen acres of his own orchard in two years, and destroyed all in 

 west of him where the winds carried it. Inside of the city we ordered 

 out six hundred trees that probably were destroyed by the neglect of 

 this individual alone. It is comparatively free now, so far as we know. 



Mr. Monroe: I think the question of Mr. Harris is not quite answered, 

 if I understand it right. He wants to hit a case where the conditions 

 are all unfavorable, w^here people are not inclined to do a thing except the 

 law compels them to do it. 



Mr. Graham: I have the law here: ''It shall be the duty of the com- 

 missioners or an}' one of them, upon or without complaint, whenever it 

 comes to their notice that either of the diseases known as yellows, etc., 

 exist, or are supposed to exist, within the limits of their township, vil- 

 lage, or city, to proceed without delay to examine the trees or fruit sup- 

 posed to be infected." 



Mr. Harris: Here is another matter. I am willing to go forth and 

 do this work, but I must have the pay that is provided. The law says 

 that the township shall audit my account, and if the board refuses to 

 do it I can't get a dollar. 



Mr, Monroe: There is plenty of machinery, as I understand it, to 

 reach the township board when there is a provision of that kind. 



Mr. Harris: The township board are not fruitgrowers and they do 

 not consider this matter necessary. 



Mr. Graham: I think the first board of commissioners appointed in 

 the township in which I live, of which I was a member, examined every 

 orchard in the township at that time. I think we did that two or three 

 years. It was not very expensive, and the township board always audited 

 the bills. I think the next board of yellows commissioners went at it 

 in November or the first of December, and examined every orchard in 

 the township, every tree. They put in some two or three weeks, I 

 believe, examining orchards in November, and they got three dollars 

 apiece per day for their services, examining trees for yellows after the 

 leaves had gone and the fruit had gone and everything else. The next 

 commissioners did not visit the orchards that time of year. 



