316 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



liortic'ultural importations into the State, and power to put into execu- 

 tion all the provisions of the State quarantine law. In a state of such 

 imperial dimensions as California this procedure is imperative to a 

 working system of quarantine, and the findings and prompt actions 

 of the quarantine guardians have demonstrated the wisdom of this 

 policy in unnumbered instances. Whether or not the present force is 

 adec|uate to meet and handle with safety the growing demands of this 

 service is a matter that I hope will receive full attention at this con- 

 vention. There are 44 quarantine guardians in the State; at the same 

 time there are also approximately 700 stations to which agents are 

 attached on the six great railroad lines that have direct interstate 

 connection with California. These are main line stations, at all of 

 which horticultural imports into this State can be delivered without 

 transfer, and at all of which the agents are amenable to the provisions 

 of section 1 of the state law. The methods and policies at present 

 employed in dealing with this vast situation are to be related at this 

 convention by the quarantine guardians themselves in a later address. 

 In the coast division of the service we have been able to maintain 

 a very complete quarantine along the seaboard, largely as a result of 

 the capable co-operation we receive from the transportation companies. 

 At the outset of the present administration of the central cjuarantine 

 office in San Francisco a special effort was made to obtain this co- 

 operation. It was demonstrated to the directors of the various lines 

 that carriers equally with producers were ultimately benefited by the 

 purpose of the quarantine law ; that the fundamental principle underly- 

 ing quarantine regulations was larger crops of better products as a 

 result of keeping insect pests and diseases out of the farms and 

 orchards of California. The prospect of larger crops — in other words 

 more freight — interested the common carriers more quickly than it 

 generally does the prcclucers, and the orders issued by the transporta- 

 tion companies to their agents in this matter of compliance with 

 quarantine regulations were in many instances more drastic than the 

 regulations in question. The carriers were assured that compliance 

 with regulations upon their part would meet with prompt attention 

 on the part of the inspection service, and that no interference with 

 commerce would occur as a res;ilt of delay. This get-togetherness of 

 agents and inspectors has developed a system which works with pre- 

 cision, and has resulted in almost doubling the amount of material 

 held and inspected at the coast ports during the past twelve months, in 

 fact, the record shows that the receipts at the San Francisco station 

 alone during the year of 1913 exceeded by 152,000 parcels those of 

 the entire coast division during the year of 1912. This has taxed the 

 powers of the present inspection force to the limit, and added to this 

 matter of commercial imports of horticultural products is the factor 

 of searching the baggage of passengers and the quarters of ships arriv- 

 ing from outside ports. Four thousand would be a fair average of the 

 total^ number of passengers landing in San Francisco each month who 

 must submit their belongings to inspection. In the search for plants 

 and plant products in all vessels and baggage that have come from for- 

 eign ports we are ably assisted by the Customs officers and thus enabled 

 to keep up with this work, but in the steamship service with Hawaiian 

 ports direct the burden of this work devolves entirely upon the State 



