40 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS 9 CONVENTION. 



seeking a quarrel with any one. I simply seek to draw your attention 

 to the weakness of a system that allows an individual to maintain his 

 property as a menace not only to his own interest and his immediate 

 neighbors', but to a great industry of our State. 



Another thing that has interfered with the success of this campaign 

 has been the woeful inefficiency of many of those growers who have 

 tried to make a stand against the blight. Moreover, the inefficiency 

 of the help engaged by the growers in this fight has been surprising 

 and discouraging in the utmost and has in itself rendered impracti- 

 cable a demonstration of the efficiency of the Waite system. 



Now, it seems to me, that it is clear that there has been no fair test 

 of the Waite system, for it matters not how well such work may be 

 done in one orchard, such work is largely vitiated if the work fails of 

 being done in adjoining orchards. 



Consider, if you will for a minute, my own position in this matter. 

 My living and my future and that of my family are in a very large 

 measure dependent upon my efforts to control the pear flight. By 

 dint of hard work and strict adherence to the Waite system, and in 

 spite of having been forced to work in gum boots for several months 

 during a crucial period of the fight last spring, I have succeeded in 

 maintaining my orchard with not more than a ten per cent loss of 

 bearing surface. 



Now then, I naturally wish to save myself from further depredations 

 of the blight. I find myself surrounded on all sides by orchards 

 fairly rotten with the blight. I find my appeals for aid calmly ignored. 

 And yet the State recognizes the justice of my claim, for laws there 

 are in plenty, but the system of carrying out these laws is so puerile, 

 so ineffectual and so cumbersome that I have no hope of the aid that 

 the State intends to render me. 



This leads me up to the question that I desire to ask of this Con- 

 vention. If I were a lawyer I suppose I would call it a hypothetical 

 question. Supposing that, years ago, before the pear blight appeared 

 in California, we had eliminated politics from the office of the State 

 Board of Horticulture and that public sentiment had demanded and 

 succeeded in placing in this office the very best talent available at 

 whatever cost; supposing, for instance, that our good friend Professor 

 Waite had been Horticultural Commissioner at that time; supposing 

 that his enthusiastic determination and wonderful ability had been 

 supported by sufficient laws and an adequate organization of his official 

 forces, do you suppose that when at length pear blight had "reared its 

 horrid head" in California's fair fields, it would not have been imme- 

 diately stamped out, if not for all time at least for a generation or 

 more? That is the time when the ounce of prevention should have 

 been applied. And pear blight may not be an isolated case. Even now 



