PROCEEDINGS OF NINETEENTH FRUIT GROWERS' CONVENTION. 113 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION. 



The report of the Committee on Legislation was then read, as follows: 



Your Committee on Legislation respectfully submit the following preliminary report: 



The laws in regard to the State Board of Horticulture, and the duties and powers of 

 its officers, seem to us to need no change. The law covering the work of the Quarantine 

 Officer has stood the test of the courts, and should, therefore, not be endangered by 

 amendments, unless these be clearly of the highest value. 



We recommend to the California congressional delegation the initiation of a measure 

 to secure an efficient and economical administration of the Government mountain and 

 forest lands in California. The present forest reservations are on the right lines to pro- 

 tect from fire and undue denudation our mountain watersheds. This will diminish 

 floods in the valley lands, and better maintain irrigation supplies. This policy requires 

 no more in this State than in France— a preventing of the utilization of the mineral, 

 forest, or other resources of our mountain lands. In France and Germany the Govern- 

 ment forest lands pay a large return above their cost into the public treasury. There is 

 no reason why we should not gradually establish a similar system. Fire, waste, and 

 destruction in our forest lands are senseless, and do permanent injury to our watersheds. 

 The present forest reservations make legitimate mineral and other development in our 

 mountains difficult, without any proper protection against fire and injury, except about 

 the Yosemite. This should be remedied by Federal action. 



The Riverside Commission recommends a law permitting cities and towns in this 

 State to appropriate money from their general funds for the destruction of fruit pests 

 within the corporate limits. If cities are found on examination to lack this power, we 

 are disposed to believe that such a law should be enacted. 



The funds of the State Board of Horticulture are derived from legislation. We are 

 of opinion that legislation to secure sufficient funds to carry on the work of the Board 

 efficiently and economically should be granted. The work of this Board is of great 

 advantage to the State in general, and especially to its valuable fruit interests, and to 

 interests such as transportation, largely dependent on it. The opportunities its conven- 

 tions offer to bring all those in the fruit business together, to become acquainted, to act 

 in harmony on great questions affecting their business, and to improve the methods of 

 fruit production and fruit marketing, fully justify, in our opinion, reasonable support 

 from the taxpayers. All sound movements in a free country come from and are sup- 

 ported by the voluntary acts of the people. We believe that the State Board of Horti- 

 culture and the Fruit Growers' Conventions are the outgrowth of popular needs, and 

 that the permanent success of the valuable work done and to be done by the Board 

 must grow out of local interest. Local gatherings and local societies are indispensable 

 for a reliable interest in the general meetings. We therefore recommend the State 

 Board of Horticulture to encourage the continuance and activity of existing local 

 societies and the formation of new ones, so that every fruit section in this State shall 

 have a growers' society in its midst. Reports, bulletins, and beneficial insects can be 

 best distributed by local means of this kind. 



We invite suggestions on laws or amendments to laws affecting the horticultural 

 interests of California. These should be sent to Mr. Alfred Holman, Secretary of the 

 Committee, Pacific Rural Press, 220 Market Street, San Francisco. All such suggestions, 

 to secure the full force of their merits, should be accompanied by a careful statement of 

 the facts on which they are based. 



ABBOT KINNEY, 



A. D. PRYAL, 



B. F. WALTON, 

 ALFRED HOLMAN, 



Committee. 



The report was received and adopted. 



REPORT OF A COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY THE LAST CONVENTION. 



Mr. Fowler: There was a committee appointed last year, in accord- 

 ance with a resolution which was passed by unanimous vote, making 

 a recommendation to the Legislature that a railroad be put through the 

 Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys by the State. That resolution is 

 a part of the minutes of the last session, and a legislative committee 

 was appointed, consisting of Messrs. Berwick, Sprague, and myself. 

 Senator Mathews was pushing through the Mathews bill at the time, 

 and, if I be permitted to quote from a letter which I received from Mr. 

 * Mathews, he gives the manner in which that bill was defeated. He said 

 that his bill had been so handled in the Legislature, and the Southern 

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