THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 233 



Sometimes the flowers are attacked and killed, in which case no com- 

 pensatory growth occurs. Thus depending on the time of the attack, 

 the blooming period may be seriously reduced and the flowers may be 

 killed, all of which reduces the crop to a greater or less extent. 



So serious do some growers consider this disease that preventive and 

 control measures are now being tried out. One of the growers in the 

 northern citrus district who lias a large acreage is now using pear blight 

 control methods in an attempt to eradicate the disease. We may expect, 

 since it is of a bacterial nature, that efficient control will be difficult. 

 At the present time the best practice seems to be careful pruning out 

 of infected branches in early summer when the diseased areas are 

 readily seen, and carefully burning such primings. 



THE ALFALFA WEEVIL AND THE MENACE OF TIA JUANA. 



By H. V. M. Hall. 



The fact that Tia Juana, Mexico, is just across the border stimulates 

 business in several San Diego offices. The police and the district 

 attorney put on extra men as soon as the race track season opens, and, 

 strange as it may seem, the local quarantine inspector expects and finds 

 more trouble than usual at about the same time. 



I have often wondered why a good horse and a no-account man are 

 so often together. Perhaps it is the same reason that good horse feed, 

 namely alfalfa hay. is associated in the minds of the horticultural 

 quarantine service with a very "ornery" bug, namely Phytonomus 

 posticus, alias the alfalfa weevil. Anyway, the first three — good horse, 

 no-account man, and good horse feed — hang around San Diego together, 

 and the fourth, that is, the "ornery" bug, is apt to join them in spite 

 of the inspector. The following incidents include items of interest 

 illustrating the economic and strictly entomological possibilities of the 

 Tia Juana race track. I will leave the moral, legal, and social possi- 

 bilities and actualities to specialists in their line. 



On the twentieth of October, 1916, I put in a full day. (I do so 

 every once in a while, but this is one that I had cause to remember.) 

 A car of emigrant movables arrived here from Utah. That doesn't 

 have anything to do with Tia Juana, but it illustrates what happens 

 when hay comes in from Utah. The farmer was "somewhere on the 

 road" by auto, so he couldn't be consulted. The hired man was in 

 charge of the car, which, by the way, contained two horses, a cow, 

 wagons, furniture, etc.. and 24 bales of alfalfa hay grown and loaded 

 at Milford, Utah. The State Quarantine Law and'Order No. 20 (then 

 in force) made it plain to the hired man that he would never get the 

 good out of that hay. "At once destroyed or returned to the shipper" 

 is the way the order read. The cost of returning the hay to Utah would 

 have been prohibitive, and the shipper was coming along, so that left 

 destruction as the only way out. 



The hired man informed me that he was "broke," and that the owner 



wasn't expected for four or five days. He couldn't handle all that hay 



himself in the course of one day. I couldn't let him put in more time 



at it. for a steamer was promised for the next day from Mexico, and 



:: 3033] 



