romona (college Journal of Kntomology 



Volume III SEPTEMBER 1911 Number 3 



A COMMISSIONER MAKES GOOD 



[The following editorial article in the "California Cultivator" of May 4, 1!)II, liy 

 Mr. C. B. Messenger, the Managing Editor, was written after a visit to Ventura County, 

 during which he made a thorough insjiection of the work of the Ventura County Horti- 

 cultural Commissioner. 



.\gain and again, through the South, we have advocated with all our strength, the 

 taking of the County Horticultural Commissionerships wholly out of politics, and the 

 employment of trained men only, for this most important work. It has seemed strange to 

 us sometimes to ha\e to champion so self evident a proposition. It has only needed, 

 after all these years, to have just one trained man employed in one of our counties, to 

 make us wake up, rub our eyes, and come to a rather painful realization of all that we 

 have heen missing through these hard fought years, when the services of the best experts 

 ohtainalile were urgently required. Countless thousands of dollars would ha\e heen sa\cd 

 to our people if tliis important work had been administered throughout by experts. 



Even with such a demonstration as the present one in progress, [)olitics still governs 

 this most important appointment in most of our counties, and the j)eople still suffer 

 sorely where they might, by choice, be benefited very materially. An expert horticultural 

 commissioner is the most effective known form of horticultural insurance! — Ed.] 



No state in the Union has given the attention to horticultural quarantine and 

 protection of its fruit and other products from the depredations of insects and 

 fungi that California has. With the State Horticultural Commission and its 

 deputies and employees in many sections of the state, and with most of the counties 

 of the state conforming to the state law and maintaining county commissions, all 

 sections are fairly well guarded. We say they are well guarded, and this is true 

 theoretically, though it must be admitted that in some counties results have not 

 justified the expense. In contrast, others show results most remarkable. We 

 believe this latter class, however, may be counted easily upon one's fingers. We 

 would not discourage the work being done under the county commission law because 

 of some of these failures or partial failures. The effort is in the right direction, 

 and where politics has been obliterated, promise is given for proper results from 

 the funds expended. In some counties results have not been wh.at they should, 

 because of lack of harmonj' between various producers rather than lack of ability 

 on the part of the commissioner and his helpers. 



It was our pleasure recently to inspect one county where harmony and ability 

 unite in accomplishment of remarkable results. It is not a big county, though it is 

 big in some of its products. For instance, in lemons it jiroduces over 200,000 

 boxes valued at well up towards a million dollars, oranges a couple of millions, 

 dried apricots over five million pounds valued at nearly a half million dollars. 

 Walnuts again is where it shines in the production of practically 4,000,000 poundt 



