10 



TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



acter, nor will she be now, for we have a good working commission, 

 which is already making its work known. But it is at once our duty 

 and our interest to take part in this affair as the organized fruit- 

 growers of the leading fruit section of the world, and I would suggest 

 that some measures to this end be taken at this Convention. We shall 

 have Mr. Filcher, one of the commissioners, with us, and can learn 

 from him what course would be best to pursue in harmony with the 

 work already done. 



Commerce in Fruit in San Francisco. — The matter of the exactions of 

 the middlemen has often come before our conventions, but we have not 

 as yet reached any sure method of escape from their often unfair and 

 sometimes dishonest treatment. I understand that there is, at the 

 present time, a combine among the fruit commission men of San Fran- 

 cisco, Avhich has established rules regulating the retail trade, and has 

 even undertaken to prevent the growers selling in the open market by 

 punishing with the boycott and other un-American methods the retailer 

 who dares to purchase from others than members of the combine. This 

 is a matter well worthy of our consideration and one which should 

 receive attention. 



Food Adulteration. — My remarks on this subject at the Los Angeles 

 Convention in May last were very full. I shall not dwell upon it 

 at this meeting. Suffice it to say that Congress is now in session. 

 This is what is known as the ''long term," and we should urge our 

 representatives to lose no opportunity in securing the passage of an 

 interstate pure food law, similar to that passed by the House of Repre- 

 sentatives during the session of the previous winter. The olive industry 

 can never be successful until such an Act becomes the law of the land, 

 and our California law, now on the statute book, fully carried out. 



In the present advanced age of civilization and progress, it is diffi- 

 cult to conceive how the human family could permit any tampering 

 with food products. Yet this has been going on year after year, so 

 that scarcely any food is what it purports to be. This false labeling 

 can only be prevented by positive law, swift in its execution and severe 

 in its punishment. While we have many able engineers engaged in the 

 investigation of the sanitary conditions of our cities, and some of our 

 best people devoting their lives to the improvement of the homes of the 

 great mass of people, and devising means to give them better ventila- 

 tion and more sunlight, thereby endeavoring to make life more cheerful, 

 we have, on the other hand, neglected the most important of all, the 

 nourishment of our bodies. I copy from the Chicago ''Record-Herald" 

 an extract written by William E. Curtis : 



Impure and adulterated foods leave a trail of human woe. We do not realize the 

 amount of disease that is due to poisonous and indigestible substances that are mixed 



