IX.] PROGRESS IN HANDLING PRODUCTS. 215 



duction of the Australian vedalia, or lady-bug, to de- 

 vour the most pestiferous of the orange -tree scales on 

 the Pacific coast. This experiment is pregnant of 

 greater and more abiding results than all the achieve- 

 ments of the sprays. But in your generation and 

 mine, men must shoulder their squirt -guns as our 

 ancestors shouldered their muskets, and see only the 

 promise of the time when they shall be beaten into 

 pruning -hooks and plowshares and there shall come 

 the peace of a silent warfare ! 



4. There is great progress in the methods of handling 

 and preserving horticultural products. I need not tell 

 the older men in this audience that there has been pro- 

 gress in the methods of handling fruits. When they 

 were boys, apples and even peaches were taken to 

 market loose in a wagon -box. We have all seen the 

 development of the special -package industry, beginning 

 first with rough bushel baskets or rude crates, then a 

 better made and smaller package, which was to be 

 returned to the consignor, and finally the trim and tasty 

 gift packages of the present day. I am sorry to say 

 that some regions have not yet reached this latter stage 

 of development, but their failure to do so only makes 

 the contrast stronger of those who have reached it. 

 Quick transportation and methods of refrigeration have 

 tied the ends of the earth together. Apples in quantity 

 are carried fourteen thousand miles from Tasmania to 

 England, and in 1890 they reached the San Francisco 

 markets to compete with the fruits of the Pacific coast. 

 From a small beginning in 1845, the exportation of 

 American apples to England and Scotland began to 

 assume commercial importance from 1875 to 1880, until 

 nearly a million and a half barrels have been exported 



