184 Forty-first Report on the State Museum. 



brought face to face with them, day after day, more intimately, more continuously, and 

 I may add, more advantageously than is possible for the scientist to be. Your trained 

 eyes are ciuick to detect the first indication of disease or injury; and you should be able 

 to discern its nature, to the extent, at least, that you may promptly summon to your 

 aid, if aid be needed, that particular scientific investigation which the occasion demands. 

 And what a broad field of cooperation with the specialist is open, if, when through the 

 aid extended, you have been led in the proper direction, you not only faithfully follow 

 the course marked out for your guidance, but also test the value of experiments that 

 will naturally be suggested by the failure or partial success that meets your efforts. 



The sciences that are lending you their cordial cooperation have a claim upon you — 

 yes, have a right to demand this at your hands. Upon you is chargeable the curse that 

 surely is hanging over, if not already fallen upon, fruit-culture in our country— "in the 

 sweat of thy face shalt thou eat" fruit! I do not overstate when I say, that the great 

 increase of plant diseases and insect ravages that you are experiencing is the direct 

 result of the enormously increased production of fruit, and the large area in which fruit 

 crops are massed. 



Immense Fruit Production — No Over Production. 



Compare the production of fruit to-day with what it was in the childhood of any here 

 present, both in variety and quantity. To go back farther than many of you are able — 

 in my childhood, an orange was a rarity; a peach was seen at intervals of years. I only 

 knew one variety of cherry ; our apples did not exceed a score, and pears a half score. 

 Now, freight trains of fruits of almost countless varieties are rolling over our country, 

 carrying the delicious and healthful products to central marts, whence they may be 

 distributed to every home in our land, and even find their way beyond the oceans that 

 bound our continent. No wonder, it may be remarked in passing, that under such pro- 

 duction, prices may, at times, become very low, and the cry is heard, " raising fruit does 

 not pay!" A prominent member of one of our horticultural societies recently made this 

 remark in a public address: " There is such an over-production of these fruits (referring 

 to a certain class) that they will no longer pay, unless some insect pests will come and 

 relieve us of half the crop." What a ridiculous, pitiable, senseless statement to make! 

 Markets that will yield remunerative prices are, and will continue, to be found to enter- 

 prising, energetic, sagacious business men. If not already existing, they may be built 

 up, and the demand will surely follow. There can be no over-production, for the retard- 

 ing houses, canneries and evaporators, springing up in all our fruit regions, will keep 

 pace with production. The desire for, the need of, wholesome fruit will ever be in 

 excess of its growth. As its price falls— to quote the words of a fruit dealer in Philadel- 

 phia, who last September received and sold in three days 665,000 pounds of grapes— 

 " everybody wants it." Should an unusually favorable season give a yield beyond the 

 possibility of gathering, transportation, or preservation, why not try the experiment of 

 giving the freedom of your orchards to " the poor whom ye have always with you," and 

 see if it is not almost as good to give as to receive. 



It does not appear to be known what the aggregate value of the fruit crop in the 

 United States amounts to, but surely that must be a safe estimate that places it at 

 between two hundred and three hundred millions of dollars annually. 



Large Areas Devoted to Fruit Crops. 



This enormous production which is but the natural outgrowth of the discovery of the 

 peculiar adaptation of the soil and climate of many portions of our country to fruit-cul- 

 ture, has compelled its cultivation in larger areas than anywhere else in the world. An 

 apple orchard on the Hudson river, at Greenport, N. Y., covers 300 acres. At Orchard 

 Hill, in Georgia, is a peach orchard of 790 acres, and 84,000 bearing trees. The vineyard 

 of Leland Stanford, at Vina, California, has 4,ooo acres in vines in a tract of six miles 

 long by two wide. 



How does this massing of crops tend to promote an increase of insect ravages ? Let 

 me illustrate it by what I have elsewhere written of oiir apple insects: 



" Two hundred years ago not even the wild crab, the earliest representative of the 

 apple existed in this country, and consequently there were no apple insects. Later, 



