416 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



SECOND DAY— MORNING SESSION. 



Fresno, California, December 12, 1912. 



After an invocation by Rev. Duncan Wallace, the meeting was called 

 to order by G. Harold Powell, who acted as chairman. 



Chairman Powell. I appear somewhat handicapped coming in here 

 just at the last minute, without knowing very much about what was done 

 at your convention yesterday. I understand the chief object of getting 

 different people outside of the Commissioner of Horticulture to preside 

 is that in this way these same people will be less troublesome when they 

 are in the chair than if they are in the audience. So I take it that the 

 Commissioner has taken this very nice way of relieving this convention 

 of a troublesome character, by canning him and putting him in the chair. 

 I understood from a short talk with some of the men who were here 

 yesterday, and with some of the ladies, too, that this is a decidedly pro- 

 gressive convention, that everything was all right, the nursery stock all 

 free from bugs, and that everything was going ahead. That is right, 

 just as it should be. Conventions of this kind cannot go forward and 

 backward at the same time. 



Your programme, as I see it, has for this morning several very good 

 numbers on it, and the first speaker on the programme needs no intro- 

 duction, but I take pleasure in introducing you to Dr. A. J. Cook, State 

 Commissioner of Horticulture, who will address you on the subject of 

 cultivation and subsoils. 



SOILS AND SUBSOILS. 



By A. J. Cook, Sacramento, CaL 



When President Garfield Avas shot the first news was ' ' probably fatal, ' ' 

 then there came the glad message, ' ' recovery probable ; temperate life 

 and abstinence from drink and tobacco greatly in his favor." Similar 

 words rejoiced us all when Roosevelt was so cruelly wounded last 

 October. The robust, vigorous animal will survive disease, exposure 

 and wounds when the one with a more feeble body topples over. 



Our cousins, the various plants, are subject to the same law. Fungous 

 and bacterial germs find ready victims in the ill-nourished trees or the 

 enfeebled shrubs ; thus blight, wither tip or fungoid and bacterial germs 

 are quick to lay hold of the shrub or tree that from over-fruiting, 

 cemented, impoverished, ill-drained or water-logged soil is weakened or 

 diseased. There can be no question but that the surest way to resist 

 fungoid attacks is to only grow vigorous and robust plants and trees. 



There are a number of plant affections that seem to be wholly due to 

 physiological disturbance — the plant is sick; thus the common "die- 

 back" of citrus, walnut and most deciduous fruit trees is probably the 

 result of faulty soil conditions and illy-nourished trees. Pallor in the 



