February, '13] SEVERIN: MEDITERRANEAN FRUIT FLY 73 



baskets loaded with fruits and vegetables makes a house to house can- 

 vass and offers, often badly infested, fruit for sale. These Chinamen 

 will take orders for large amounts of fruits and deliver the same to 

 your door. How easy it would be for the unthinking, traveling public 

 to buy fruit from these peddlers and pack the same in a trunk to' take 

 to their friends or for their own use on the mainland! 



President W. D. Hunter: Is there any discussion on this paper? 



Mr. C. L. Marlatt: I am very glad to have listened to Mr. Sev- 

 erin's paper and I think he is correct in many things that he has said, 

 but he is a little behind the times as to some things and he is not alto- 

 gether fair in speaking of control measures. I spent one month in 

 Hawaii and during that time I was very busy seeing all that was pos- 

 sible of the fruit fly throughout the islands of Hawaii. Human effort 

 is never perfect. Nursery stock is sent to every pface in the United 

 States and the success of the Federal Plant law depends on the indi- 

 vidual inspectors. A law rests on the character of the individual wha 

 enforces it. The authorities in Honolulu have undoubtedly done the 

 best they could. When I was there the city was as clean as a dollar 

 and there was no affected fruit noticeable. It is true, there was not 

 much fruit when I was there, and the season that Mr. Severin speaks 

 of is the season when the fruit is most abundant, when hundreds of 

 barrels fall from the trees every night and the conditions are necessarily 

 at their worst. No doubt the conditions when Mr. Severin was there 

 are correctly described but somewhat wrongly interpreted. The in- 

 spection at the San Francisco end is a further check, and the fruit is 

 prohibited at British Columbia. The protection elsewhere along the 

 coast is pretty good. If there is a single bad or broken fruit the in- 

 spectors at San Francisco reject it. You can find good and bad in 

 any question, but in this instance the balance is distinctly on the right 

 side. The experimental testing of food products is to be very care- 

 fully done, and if we find that there is danger from bananas the federal 

 quarantine will be extended to this fruit. California has not been 

 lenient in letting things in; she has rather gone to the other extreme 

 and carried her quarantines beyond the actual needs. Bananas and 

 pineapples are inspected now by federal officers in Hawaii, and that 

 inspection is repeated at San Francisco. No doubt it is true that 

 some officers have not been absolutely above suspicion, but that is one 

 of the things we have to come in contact with always in human nature. 

 The paper points out one side rather than the other. We are improv- 

 ing the situation as fast as we can, and I think the people who have 

 been affected by this quarantine have accepted it with splendid spirit. 

 There has not been a bit of hesitation in establishing safeguards, and 



