THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 309 



this grand fruit. I suppose it is entirely within tlu' possibilities that 

 we shall produce more apricots than we can sell for a good price. This 

 so-called overproduction has come in many lines of fruit growing in 

 California, but at present it seems far otf for apricots, and very high 

 priced land is being planted to these trees. A friend of mine has just 

 planted land that sells readily at $1,000 per acre, and he must figure 

 that he can make interest on that value and his added expense of 

 growing the trees along to bearing age. I think that this is doubtless 

 a blunder from a financial point of view, but he may be right and I may 

 be wrong; but at any rate land that is well situated and of the best 

 quality, as his land is. will pay good interest on a big valuation when 

 it comes into bearing, if planted to Blenheim apricots and well cared 

 for. And it will pay it regularly without nuich possibility of total 

 failure in any year. 



HORTICULTURAL QUARANTINE. 



A BRIEF Resume OF ITS ORIGIN. DEVELOPMENT AND PRACTICE 



IN CALIFORNIA. 



By Frederick Maskew, Cliief Deputy Quarantine Officer. 

 Address Before State Fruit Growers' Conventior.. Davis, Cal., June 1, 1914. 



Quarantine! It is a nasty word and has an ominous sound. It 

 suggests investigation and interference with our persons and belong- 

 ings, and is always a'-sociated with unpleasant experiences. It is now 

 generally recognized as a necessary evil, and one that should be 

 prosecuted with diligence at all seasons, excepting only when its 

 regulations are applied to our individual selves, then it is, well — an 

 outrage. I have found by experience that the addition of a maximum 

 of common .sense, tact, eourte-y and dispatch to the actual work ha.s 

 ameliorated l)ut very little the censure of the restrictions made by 

 the indi%ndual under investigation, and the quarantine ser\nce still 

 remains by far the most unpopular branch of the State Commission 

 of Horticulture. Quarantine! How few of us here present know 

 the derivation of the word or its original meaning. It is the equivalent 

 in the French tongue for a period of forty days, and was originally 

 applied to the old sanitary preventive .system of detention of ships and 

 persons, which was practiced at seaports on account of the plague. 



It is a far ciy from 1348 to 1914 — from the shores of the Adriatic 

 to the University Farm here at Davis — yet it was in Venice during the 

 year 1348 that the cit}' fathers of that seaport created the first board 

 (>f health, and the members of which formulated the first quarantine 

 regulations. The Venetians were maritime traders, their argosies sailed 

 many seas, bringing back cargoes that yielded rich revenues and also 

 on occassions the germs of strange and fatal diseases, and as a conse- 

 quence earlier quarantine regulations were concerned only with the 

 matter of public health. In the interim between 1348 and 1875 weird 

 indeed were the experiences of those unfortunates who fell under the 

 jurisdiction of the quarantine regulations, and while this is no time 

 or place for a recital of the same, en passant I would remark that 

 those who care to search for and read these records will find many 



