SOME SCALE INSECTS. 95 



ized, the State laws provide that whenever a petition is presented 

 to the Board of Supervisors of any county signed by twenty-five 

 persons possessing orchards, calling attention to any orchards 

 which are affected with injurious insects, the Board shall within 

 twenty days select three commissioners for the county, to be 

 known as the County Board of Horticultural Commissioners. 

 These commissioners serve three years, and it is their duty, 

 whenever they deem it necessary, to cause an inspection to be made 

 of any orchards, nurseries, fruit-packing houses, or salesrooms, 

 and if they are found infested with injurious insects to notify 

 the owner or person in charge, of the condition of affairs, and 

 require them to eradicate and destroy the pest. If the owner 

 refuses or neglects to abate the nuisance, the commissioners do 

 the work themselves, the Expense becoming a county charge, the 

 sums so placed being a lien on the property from which the 

 nuisance has been removed. The commissioners further have 

 power to divide the county into districts and appoint local 

 inspectors. 



At the same time the State Board of Horticulture is empowered 

 to make certain regulations covering the State work, and cover- 

 ing the introduction of new injurious insects into the State. 

 Some of these regulations which bear upon quarantine provide 

 for the inspection of all trees, plants, buds, and scions brought 

 into the State. The quarantine officer of the Board must be 

 notified within twenty-four hours of the arrival of such pack- 

 ages, which must be disinfected according to the methods laid 

 down by the Board, upon arrival at any point where they are to 

 be unloaded. It any of them are found to be infested with 

 insects or fungous diseases, they must remain in quarantine four- 

 teen days, or until the quarantine guardian can certify that they 

 are free. Railroads are required to notify the State Board of 

 Horticulture of the arrival of trees or plants from outside the 

 State, postal cards backed with the blank forms being furnished 

 by the Board for this purpose. The United States Customs 

 officers and the Southern Pacific Eailway, in particular, render 

 the Board of Horticulture most valuable assistance. It may be 

 interesting to quote in full the instructions of the Southern 

 Pacific Railway Company to its agents. They are as follows : 



" Agents are hereby forbidden to deliver any trees, plants, cut- 

 tings, grafts, buds, scions, seeds, or pits received from any point 



