20 THE REPORT OF THE [19 



Mr. Dearness : — You can get it for two cents a pound now. 



Dr. Fletcher : — They won't go to the expense of two cents a pound for it. It 

 takes a good many pounds to go over an orchard and after the first year I don't think we 

 can trust oar fruit-growers to do that work. Thi3 is no experiment. Many things can 

 be done that are not, if they cost money and trouble, it is the same with the hydrocyanic 

 acid gas If Prof. Webster was going to fumigate trees, I would say he can kill every 

 Scale, but an ordinary man will not do it. We have to deal with the actual defects which 

 commonly occur in mankind. The thing is practicable if carried out properly and the man 

 who makes the statement that it cannot be carried out is not a practical adviser. If we 

 can teach the fruit-growers of this country that it does pay them and can persuade them, 

 well and good, but I doubt it. For ten years I have been working on this kind of work 

 and I know only too well there is a great deal of difficulty in persuading people to do even 

 what will save them money, when you go to the orchards and houses of fruit-growers and 

 see the way they do this work of fighting insects. I was in the fruit house of a fruit-grower 

 whom I persuaded to buy a pump, and I said " Where is your pump, why don't you use it 1 ? " 

 He said, " We did not use it this year, there is no crop " Another man wrote to me from 

 British Columbia showing great interest in spraying. " What is the best kind of pump 1 

 I want to get nothing but the best," etc., etc. I was in his orchard this summer and asked 

 him about the pump. He said, "I have not unpacked it, I have been too busy." He 

 imported it from here, got it out there and then had not time even to cut the string that 

 tied the handle on to the pump ! 



1 approve most heartily of the measures adopted to wipe out the San Jose Scale by 

 the Provincial Government and I shall help them in any way in my power. Of course, 

 politics are a very different thing from entomology. As an entomologist I say the work 

 was well done. I do wish to express my appreciation of the work that has been done by the 

 Government, of Professor James for his activity in the department, and Mr. Fisher in his 

 honest and straight-forward dealing with this question. I said to Mr. Dryden last year, 

 " If Fisher has got to go into an orchard and find the San Jose Scale he will treat his 

 own brother or himself as he would anybody else and will destroy everyone of his own 

 trees if he finds them infested." At first Mr. Fisher was a specialist, now he is an 

 expert both as an entomologist and as an enthusiastic man, and I say to day is the time 

 for people to acknowledge it for the country should know it. We must recognize this 

 question as one to be fought out It is a serious matter and we have not got to the bottom 

 of it yet. Let us have every suggestion that will help us. 



The Chairman : — I think we should not undervalue the force of example. There 

 is a place called Abbotsford in the Province of Quebec, one of the few places where apples 

 are grown to perfection. There was an intelligent fruit-grower there, Mr. Charles Gibb, 

 who took to spraying his trees, and I know that a few years afterwards there was not a 

 man in that neighborhood who did not spray his trees. Whether they continued to do so 

 I do not know ; the example was catching. Would it not be possible for the Government 

 to induce some good man in one district that ha3 been referred to, to spray his trees and 

 to watch the result and see whether his neighbors would not catch the idea from him and 

 follow up his method ] Whatever other plan may be taken by the Government it seems 

 to me that the power of example should not be overlooked. We have had a very valu- 

 able amount of instruction to day, and if there is any one else who would like to make 

 any remarks we would be ploased to hear him. 



Mr. W. E. Saunders then moved, seconded by Mr. J. Law, that a committee be 

 appointed to draft the resolution asked for by Dr. Fletcher, to consist of Mr. Lyman, Dr. 

 Bethune, Dr. Fletcher, Mr. Balkwill, Mr. Dearness and Mr. W. E. Saunders, and to 

 report at a later session of the meeting. — Carried. The meeting then adjourned. 



