232 



Review of Revieics, iOISjOG. 



How California Fights Her Fruit Pests ♦ 



There are 

 m i s s i onaries 

 and mission- 

 aries, but one 

 of the most 

 curious of mis- 

 sionaries in the 

 world to-day is 

 I httle orange 

 tree, which at 

 this present 

 moment is en- 

 gaged in one 

 of the most re- 

 markable mis- 

 sionary enter- 

 prises that one 

 could imagine. 

 It is only a 

 small thing, 

 about four feet 

 in height, and, 

 when it started 

 out from Cali- 

 fornia on its 

 mission, ny a s 

 enclosed in a 

 strong wooden 

 case, with open- 

 ings to allow 

 it breathing 

 space. 



At the pre- 

 sent moment it 

 is in the heart of China, at a point far away from the 

 ordinary track of tourists. The mission of this little 

 tree forms a text of the most interesting description of 

 California's method of saving her fruit crops, as told by 

 W. S. Harwood, in the February number of The 

 Ccniiiry Magazine. 



I have before indicated in " The Review of Re- 

 views " the extreme measures w^hich America takes 

 in order to enable her producers to get the best 

 possible results from their work. This article gives 

 a fine illustration of this paternal procedure with 

 regard to insect pests. It is estimated that the 

 work carried on under the supervision of the Cali- 

 fornia Commissioner of Horticulture saves millions 

 of dollars per year to the fruit industrj- of that 

 The method of treating insect pests adopted by 

 the Commissioner is a remarkable one, and it insures, 

 when successful, a twofold saving. First, it puts a 

 check upon the disease or pest ; and, secondly, it 

 ■country. 



Mr. Compere in His Rooms in the West 

 Australia Experiment Station. 



does awav with the need of elaborate spraying out- 

 fits. 



What the little orange tree went out for was this : 

 It had contracted a disease which, if allowed to go 

 on unchecked, would do irretrievable damage to a 

 great industry. Now it is becoming more evident, 

 as science extends her knowledge, that there exists 

 in Nature a proper balance. Whenever, in any re- 

 spect, there is unrestricted production, it is certain 

 that in some parts of the world there is a force 

 which would counteract it. Were this not so, cer- 

 tain forms of vegetable and parasitic disease would 

 become widespread and impossible to check. 



Acting on this fact, the.refore, the California Com- 

 missioner of Horticulture has set himself to find the 

 natural enemies which threaten the existence of 

 American orchards. It is to find the natural enemy 

 of the scale which is affecting it that the little 

 orange tree has set out for the Celestial Land. In 

 some roundabout way it was learned that in a 

 Chinese province this pest of the Californian orange 

 tree lived side by side with the tiny insect that was 

 an enemy to it. The pest and the destroying insect 

 developed in about equal numbers, so that the 

 balance was preserved, and the pest did no harm. 

 So the little orange tree goes to that district, that 

 the destroying insect may lay its eggs upon the 

 leaves of the tree. It always does this when it finds 

 a place where its prey is living, and the tree will 

 then be sent back to San Francisco for the eggs to 

 be hatched, and then this rapacious little insect will 

 be sent into the infected orange regions to destroy 

 the pest. 



When it got to China, the tree was met by a 

 man who has made a life-long study of plant dis- 

 eases and injurious insects, and who, being in the 

 employ of the Californian Commission, spends his 

 time travelling over the world searching for the foes 

 of pernicious insects. Now he may be in Western 

 Australia (which country helps to pay his exp>enses), 

 now in Japan, in Spain, in Siberia, in fact anyv.aere 

 where it is believed that he may get valuable infor- 

 mation and insects. This man is Mr. G. Compere, 

 an enthusiast in his work, who left Western Aus- 

 tralia for China in order to be there when the little 

 orange tree, which left San Francisco on July 6th 

 of last year, arrived. 



An instance of the valuable work done by Mr. 

 Compere is illustrated by the success which has at- 

 tended his efforts over the codlin moth f>est, which 

 is, by the way, rampant in Australia. When in 

 Spain a year or so ago, he found a region where 

 the codlin moth lived, but where the ravages of the 

 worm were very slight. Mr. Compere discovered 



