152 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.84 



cultural State. It has a rapidly growing (already very large) popu- 

 lation which seems to be unanimous in its loyalty to the State and in 

 its opinion of the advantages of residence in the State, but which 

 otherwise is very heterogeneous. For many years the political man- 

 agement of the State has wavered from good to bad and back again. 

 For many years the railroads were said to control the State and its 

 politics. There has been a tendency for many years for persons with 

 strange beliefs to migrate to California, largely on account of its 

 climate, and southern California today is known as the home of all 

 of the heterodoxies. 



With all these things taken into consideration, it is not surprising 

 that many good things in economic entomology have come out of 

 California, nor is it suri)rising that she has suffered from many 

 unwise policies. 



California was the first State to protect itself by legislation and 

 quarantine against the introduction of new insect pests. She made 

 up her mind in 1880 that she had quite enough of these enemies and 

 wanted no more ; and therefore passed quarantine laws in 1881 which 

 were not only sound but which were novel in their character. She was 

 a pioneer State in this direction. Nothing like it had been done before, 

 except for certain laws passed by certain European countries during 

 the Phylloxera and potato beetle crises a decade earlier. 



Having passed these wise laws, for which the damage done in the 

 State by certain injurious insects had given abundant cause, we would 

 naturally expect that California would have gone ahead wisely and 

 focused the energies of some of her best men on the best ways to 

 handle the injurious insects already present. Rut, as just stated, the 

 State has suffered from her politicians, and the wrong men controlled 

 her policies, from the view-point of agriculture, for many years. 



A good man, lacking in scientific knowledge it is true, but one 

 with rather sound ideas on the whole, named Matthew Cooke, an 

 Irishman by birth, who had migrated to the United States in 1850 

 and who was a progressive fruit-box manufacturer at Sacramento 

 in the late 1870's, made an address before the State Fruit Growers on 

 January 6, 1879, which indicated some knowledge of insect pests. 

 Later he wrote articles on entomological subjects for the news- 

 papers. On March 4, 1881, a State act was signed which defined the 

 powers of the State Viticultural Commissioners and protected the 

 interests of horticulture and viticulture, and Cooke was appointed the 

 first Chief Executive Horticultural and Health Officer. He formu- 

 lated a set of six quarantine regulations and fifteen rules, and made 



