PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 99 



in that vicinity. It is a new trouble and will require special investi- 

 gation. The University has employed a man, Mr. Warren T. Clarke, 

 who will be specially delegated to that task, and will spend a con- 

 siderable portion of the next few months, if not the whole time of the 

 next six months, in the work of finding out what is to be done, and, if 

 possible, doing it. 



I hear that the Eastern manufacturers of Paris green stand in high 

 horror of those California scientists who have made it impossible for 

 them to palm off their fine adulterations upon the California trade. 

 They are now obliged to prepare, we hear, a special Paris green particu- 

 larly for the California market. We owe to science, also, something in 

 the discovery of beneficial insects. It was only through scientific study 

 that there could have been found ^out what was the lack in our fig cul- 

 ture, and the introduction of an insect to distribute the fructifying 

 pollen to the blossoms of the figs represented a service of surpassing 

 value to this State. Chemistry has removed many of the difficulties 

 in the canning and drying of fruits through explaining the sources of 

 troubles, and providing remedies therefor. The problem of pickling the 

 ripe olive has been advanced to solution through scientific investigation 

 of causes which produced troubles therein. I was not, however, called 

 in here to enumerate the things that have been done. There are few, 

 I suppose, that know less about them than I do. What I am here for 

 is to express to you my strongest and most enthusiastic confidence in 

 the work that is now doing through the organized labors of the State 

 Board of Horticulture and the Department of Agriculture in the State 

 University, to uphold the hands of the fruit-growers of this State, and 

 to advance and strengthen the industry which they represent. 



SELECTION, NATUEAL AND AKTIFIOIAL, 



David Starr Jordan, President of Stanford University, delivered a 

 very instructive and entertaining address on the application of natural 

 laws to horticulture, showing, by numerous illustrations, how animals 

 and birds adapted themselves to their environment and changed their 

 characters to suit their changed condition, and that by understanding 

 and applying this natural law of evolution the horticulturist had been 

 enabled to produce new varieties and improve old ones until we had 

 attained our present high standard. 



He prefaced his remarks with the suggestion that one of the most 

 important functions of the State might be that of scientific research, 

 investigating the nature of matters in which the attainment of the 

 scientific knowledge absolutely necessary to success would be beyond 

 the reach of the ordinary citizen, or even corporation. He gave as an 

 illustration of this the inquiry into the nature of the cottony-cushion 



