98 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



years, chiefly under the leadership of Director Hilgard, have brought 

 results the value of which it is not easy to measure. Scientific investi- 

 gation has been utilized to show on the basis of rugged scientific tests 

 that California fruits are larger, handsomer, sweeter, and endowed with 

 better keeping qualities than fruits grown elsewhere. All these are on 

 record in the tables of chemical and physical analyses, and are raised 

 beyond dispute. Science has done much in directing men toward the 

 proper use of different soils. Some are better than others, some are suited 

 for fruit-growing, some are unsuited. Many a man has been spared 

 disappointment and loss by being warned that a certain soil was not 

 suited for the trees he proposed to plant upon it, when, without the 

 determinations which chemistry alone permits, he would have been 

 unable to protect himself through observation of any surface appear- 

 ances. The investigation of climate and water on a scientific basis has 

 done much, and will, when carried further, do much more in determin- 

 ing what particular localities are suited to what class of products. It is 

 furthermore only a few years since the weather observations attained 

 sufficient scientific accuracy to be worthy the heeding of fruit-growers. 

 To-day I venture to say no wise man engaged in such pursuits fails to 

 closely watch the weather prognostications, particularly when frost is 

 in the air. We are but in the beginning of these things. It is within 

 the memory of most of us here present that these attempts to bring 

 large ranges of facts together and combine them by the observation of 

 laws into what may be called results have had their existence, and 

 surely we can not expect that this entirely new method of procedure in 

 human affairs should have reached its completeness within a score of 

 years. We are only at the beginning, we stand merely in the doorway. 

 What science can do for human life, for industry has not yet been even 

 dreamed of. 



The cultivation of single lines of fruits and vegetables upon extended 

 areas has given the opportunity for the development of all sorts of pests. 

 Sin seems to abound wherever virtue is, and I have heard that the devil 

 is never more active than when the cause of good is thriving. At any 

 rate that seems to be the case with all forms of insect pests. The Colo- 

 rado potato-bug used to have a hard time getting a living when he was 

 obliged to tramp long distances from one potato vine to another; but 

 when people planted the potato vines conveniently for him in rows, and 

 by the acre, he throve, increased, and multiplied, like the children of 

 Israel in the Promised Land. The bounty of nature seems always to be 

 attended with troubles and dangers like these. Eternal vigilance is the 

 price of safety. I think California horticulturists have all of them more 

 or less cause to be thankful already to science for what it has done in 

 helping them fight one pest or another. Only this past week we received 

 word from Newcastle of the dangerous development of the peach moth 



