11 



correct ones and he is ready to try almost any nostrum, if it 

 is recommended to him in sufficiently alluring terms. Here 

 is a community of the most experienced and most successful 

 orange growers in the state and one would naturally sup- 

 pose that they would, after these many years of experience, 

 have reached substantial agreement as to how to grow 

 oranges; but we find them proposing, from their several 

 individual experiences, a score of different methods dia- 

 metrically opposed to one another. Some of these may IM* 

 right but most of them are probably radically wrong. 



Within the last twenty-five years I have seen groves 

 budded from oranges to lemons, from lemons to cjrape fruit, 

 from grape fruit back to oranges, from navels to Valencias 

 and from Valencias back to navels again. The economic 

 waste in this series of changes is enormous and it can be 

 accounted for only on the ground of indecision and Qu< 

 tion of opinion as to what is the wise and profitable thing 

 to do. The same fluctuation of opinion in most lines of 

 business would be more likely to be followed by bankruptcy 

 than success. 



Why do I on this occasion make this confession of ad- 

 mitted ignorance and partial failure in behalf of the 

 orange growers of Southern California? In order that I 

 may emphasize the pressing need and the wonderful oppor- 

 tunity of the department of agriculture of the University 

 of California. We are assembled today to give recognition 

 to its expansion and to rejoice in the completion of the 

 noble building by which its usefulness will be enhanced; 

 but we must not lose sight of the fact that the fields are 

 still white for the harvest and that from all over the state 

 there is coming up to this department of our great university 

 a demand for scientific investigation, experiment, and in- 

 struction which is not only important but essential to the 

 future prosperity and development of the state. I have 

 spoken of conditions in the citrus industry because I am 

 familiar with them, but the same need for help exists in 

 other branches of fruit growing and farming; and in some 



