228 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



of the fly throughout the entire district. This system as originated 

 was continued and developed by the agent representing California 

 during the period of liis incumbency, and was taken over, extended 

 and further developed in many of its details by Dr. E. A. Back upon 

 his assuming control of the work, and it was being diligently pursued 

 in all of its details at and during the time of my investigation. 



Force employed. 



Inspectors ranging in numbers from seven to eleven, and averaging 

 nine for the season, have been kept continuously at work patrolling 

 the precincts allotted to their charge and have occupied themselves 

 in seeing that all infested fruit upon the groimd was gathered up and 

 destroyed. In some instances they have removed from the trees and 

 caused to be destroyed all fruit showing evidence of attack by the 

 fruit-fly and before the same had time to develop. This means that 

 all fruit coloring up or maturing has to be removed. Any and prac- 

 tically all host fruits remaining on the trees until the same are suffi- 

 ciently matured to have a commercial or an edible value, even after 

 all of' the drastic measures employed during the past thirty months, 

 are found to be infested with the eggs or larvfe of the fly. To the 

 workings of a practical mind— recognizing that all is ultimately 

 destined to attack— it would appear as a better policy to remove the 

 entire crop of fruit from the tree at one operation. However, the 

 present system has one feature of local interest in that it furnishes 

 continuous employment for the inspectors. 



Territory covered. 



The area embraced within the confines of the clean culture district 

 includes all of the city of Honolulu and its environs. There are no 

 commercial fruit orchards in this area, and the work of attempted 

 control of the fruit-fly has been confined to the fruit, berries and nuts 

 growing on the house lots and unoccupied lands within these limits. 

 The infinite variety of food plants of the pest under consideration 

 found within this area is equalled only by the remarkable numl^er of 

 racial types that occupy either as owner or tenants the premises upon 

 which these same host plants are growing. These are factors that have 

 proven insuperable obstacles to successful control, even in the policed 

 district; continuous period of maturing of fruit on one hand, and 

 indifference, often antagonism, to prescribed regulations and sanitary 

 measures on the other. 



But little if any supervision or attempts at control have been 

 directed towards the hosts of the fruit-fly in the vegetable gardens 

 or truck farms. The greater portion of all the fly-infested material 

 that has reached the mainland and been detected and destroyed before 

 leaving the docks, since the inception of the clean culture campaign, 

 has consisted principally of hosts grown in the vegetable gardens and 

 other localities not covered by the inspection system maintained in 

 the past or in force at the present time, and is here offered in support 

 of the statement that the clean culture campaign has not reduced the 

 amount of infested material arriving at the mainland. 



No attempt whatever has been made to control— by mechanical 

 means— the fruit-flies in the wild areas ; in fact, it would be farcical 

 to make any such attempt. The wild guavas abound on the inaccess- 



