PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 145 



been that you can not find one yard but that carries some insect pest 

 and, as the paper says, the tree is dear to the heart of the person Avho 

 planted it. and they smile at you when you say that the trees ought to 

 be attended to. These little towns are the breeding grounds of the 

 State of California for all kinds of insect pests. A man comes in with 

 a load of hay or a load of wood and he takes it through some shrub- 

 bery to the barn or woodshed ; he takes the wagon home and the insects 

 have fallen from the tree to the wagon, and maybe he has at home a 

 tree that is part shelter and part barn and part wagon house and he 

 leaves the wagon there and that section of country is infested; and 

 as long as the towns persist in making a breeding place of the yards to 

 infest the whole State of California, just so long will we have it. That 

 point can not be too markedly expressed. Every one in the State of 

 California is interested in this fruit industry. Every one who lives in 

 the town has as much interest as the person who lives in the country, 

 and far more so, because just as soon as you wipe out the industry your 

 town will shrivel up. Now, that paper should be well circulated. It 

 would have this effect: it would stimulate the Horticultural Commis- 

 sioner in his own neighborhood, of course. It would show the right 

 side of the question to the people who always object to your coming 

 into the yard and expressing dislike for the manner in which they are 

 protecting the insects. 



ME. PEMMONS. If it is in order for just a few remarks, I feel 

 like trying to say something. In our mountain section, and 1 presume 

 it is so all over California, we have a number of different species of 

 native white fly. I have been watching their work, not in a scientific 

 way, for years, and from that observation I think I can understand 

 something of the difficulties that you have in fighting this pest here. 



For instance, we have one species of the white fly that attacks our 

 common chaparral bush: another, perhaps, of the manzanita. It is 

 very prevalent on the California laurel. You take hold of a bush of 

 the laurel, particularly, and of the other species where you will see 

 them sticking to the leaves, and give it a little shake and the white fly 

 will come out like a cloud. In one particular location that I know, it 

 is very prevalent : along the road and the stage line to Yosemite the 

 chaparral brush has been dying and is almost gone. It is a demonstra- 

 tion of what that particular insect will do, small and insignificant as it 

 is, and when it gets into our orchards— that is, the species that attacks 

 our citrus fruits — it is almost impossible, in my estimation, to eradi- 

 cate it, at least in any reasonable time, and particularly under the 

 labor trouble. But in that paper, if I caught the ' words aright, it 

 appears to me that those trees in our yards about the town, wherever 

 they are situated, that perhaps have been planted by some hand that 



10— FGC 



