PAPERS ON ZOOLOGY 145 



WHAT CALIFORNIA IS DOING FOR THE CONTROL 

 OF INJURIOUS INSECTS 



GERTRUDE BACON, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



California has been the pioneer in many matters pertaining 

 to horticulture. The work as now carried on is under the 

 direction of a horticulture commissioner, a skilled horticul- 

 turist and entomologist appointed by the Governor. He has 

 a deputy commissioner and secretary to assist him. In prac- 

 tically all counties there is a county board of horticulture 

 consisting of three members. To carry on the work more 

 thoroughly the board divides the county into districts and ap- 

 points a local inspector for each district who has full authority 

 to cause the inspection of any orchard, nursery, packing house, 

 trees or plants. If any are found infested by injurious insects, 

 the inspector must notify the owner and the owner is required 

 to eradicate or destroy them within a certain specified 

 time. If he fails to do this the county board does it at the 

 expense of the county and attaches lien to the property. 



The State has two aims in its work, to eradicate the in- 

 jurious insects already in the State, and prevent all others from 

 entering. To accomplish the first of these the State is trying 

 by means of farm advisers, correspondence instruction, and 

 monthly bulletins to spread the knowledge of the injurious 

 insects and method of their control among the ranchers and 

 growers. For the State must have their interest and co-opera- 

 tion to obtain the best results. 



Artificial means of fighting insects by spraying and fumi- 

 gation have proved so costly and insufficient that it is the 

 work of the State to discover, introduce and establish new 

 parasites to prey upon the injurious insects. It was in Cali- 

 fornia that the natural parasites were first used to combat the 

 insect enemies, and so thorough has been this work along all 

 lines that there are today few serious pests for which there is 

 not an effective enemy. Expert entomologists are kept in the 

 field in California, in other states, and countries, who collect 

 these parasites. They are forwarded to the State Insectary 

 where they are supplied with the proper hosts and reared in 

 sufficient numbers to be sent out into the sections of the State 

 where the destructive insects upon which they prey are found. 



As the most serious pests have been introduced species, it 

 is important for the State to keep those from neighboring 

 states and countries from entering. California has been a 

 pioneer in affording a most complete system of protection 

 to her main industry of agriculture, by means of quarantine, 



