PEACH CULTURE IN CONNECTICUT 179 



The only objectors to the law and its enforcement were 

 the owners of diseased trees in private grounds. The 

 owners of these few sickly and oftentimes dying trees cared 

 little or nothing about the spread of disease, and preferred 

 taking one more chance of a little inferior fruit from these 

 worthless trees to aiding the state and their neighbors in 

 building up a strong new industry — worth more than a 

 million dollars annually. There were a few appeals under 

 the law, but, in nearly every instance, the deputies were 

 sustained and the condemned trees finally destroyed. In 

 the case of one Amasa M. Main, of North Stonington, who 

 refused to obey the Commission and destroy some 25 affected 

 trees, the superior court of New London county imposed 

 a fine of ^100, and on an appeal to the supreme court of 

 the state, the law was fully sustained. Main then secured 

 his election to the General Assembly of 1897, and worked 

 for the repeal of the law under which he had been con- 

 victed in the highest courts of the state. 



At a hearing before the Agricultural Committee, the 

 owners of less than 200 trees asked for the repeal, while the 

 owners of more than 450,000 trees asked for its retention 

 and continued enforcement. Horticultural intelligence and 

 business enterprise were all on the side of the law, while ig- 

 norance of the disease and jealousy of a new industry they 

 could not fully grasp caused many country representatives 

 to ask for the repeal of the law, and finally to vote for it. 

 A majority of the city representatives and the most progres- 

 sive of the farmer element voted to sustain the law, yet it was 

 repealed, and discouragement fell upon the peach industry. 



Since then the more extensive planters have continued 

 to pull out and burn their diseased trees, while those with 

 less at stake have been less prompt, and the disease is in- 

 creasing in its destructive work. The wholesome, educa- 

 tional effect of the four years' enforcement of the law is 

 counterbalanced by the unfounded belief that its repeal was 

 evidence that there was little or no danger in the disease. 

 The continued enforcement of the law would have cost the 

 state about $8,000 per year; its repeal is costing the small 

 farmers of the state from $200,000 to $300,000 per annum, 

 and a genuine loss to the state as a whole. 



