PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 145 



occasionally resorted to unfair methods in avoiding inspection, but 

 to-day the nurseryman realizes more than ever the advantages of being 

 able to offer clean stock for sale, and invites the closest examination of 

 his trees before placing them on the market. 



The shipper and dealer formerly paid little or no attention to the 

 pests infesting fruits; but when the quarantine officers at the point of 

 destination of the shipment began to dump boxes of his goods, he 

 realized that clean fruit had an increased value over the other kind. 

 Unquestionably every one in the fruit business is alive to the necessity 

 of thorough disinfection of infested and infected places, and great 

 strides have been made in the past decade in arousing this sentiment 

 in California. 



Washes have been thoroughly studied, their manufacture simplified, 

 and their application intelligently accomplished. Parasites have been 

 distributed, propagated, and studied, while fumigation has received 

 careful attention by the fruit-growers of California. In all this work 

 the County Horticultural Boards have been foremost. In carrying out 

 the instructions of the State Board and assisting in experiments the 

 County Boards have always been active. 



The work of the Agricultural Department of the State University has 

 been beneficial to horticulture by the cooperation of the County Boards, 

 and by constant communication with the professors of the college. Even 

 the important investigations of the Agricultural Department at Wash- 

 ington and the work of the agent of the Department on this Coast, 

 Professor Pierce, of Santa Ana, have been eagerly received and com- 

 municated by the County Horticultural Boards. 



In short, the advanced position of California horticulture to-day, 

 while it is due, of course, to very many causes, is largely the result of 

 the untiring work of these officers in the fruit districts. 



For eleven years the members of the County Boards have been meet- 

 ing in annual session at the same time and place as the Fruit-Growers' 

 Convention. At these meetings the officers of the State Board, university 

 professors, fruit-growers, nurserymen, and others interested have 

 gathered for conference and instructioa, and a better understanding of 

 our quarantine laws, and of the nature and method of extermination 

 of pests, has resulted. In fact, much of the success of the quarantine 

 officers has resulted from the uniform work carried on in the counties, 

 and from a discussion of methods in these annual gatherings. Pro- 

 posed legislation, both State and National, is taken up and discussed 

 at our meetings, and ordinances in effect in various counties are com- 

 pared, with a view of reconciling differences and securing uniformity. 

 A uniform certificate of inspection has been adopted, and is generally 



10 — F-GC 



