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



has passed away, are the most difficult to handle. It hurts to see 

 them mutilated, as I see one out there now, yet it is throwing out new 

 life, it shows vitality in that tree— still, that sentiment is going to be 

 one of the hardest to be combated. Those trees seem almost like the 

 touch of a beloved hand or the sound of a voice that is still. You go 

 into some yards where people have that sentiment, that heart, that 

 soul connection with those trees, and you can scarcely bear to see them 

 mutilated as those are. But necessity is behind it all, and, judging from 

 our native species of Aleyrodes and the effect they have on the native 

 shrubbery, that necessity stands face to face with our people of Cali- 

 fornia and the pest must be eradicated if it is possible. (Applause.) 



MR. MILLS. I have been very much struck with the remarks of the 

 gentleman who has just sat down. He made a remark which is exactly 

 true, that he has no hope of effectually eradicating the pests we have. I 

 doubt very much if we will ever be able to eradicate the pests we have 

 from the trees of our State. We have many pests in the south, we are 

 fighting them, we are making a winning fight— that is, we are keeping 

 them under subjection, in order that we may be able to make a living 

 and a little more. You are interested with us. We admire immensely 

 the self-saerifice that has been made in this town and which will be made 

 at Oroville. We in the south are willing to make the same. We have 

 pests there you do not want here, the purple scale and the black scale 

 and the red scale and others. You have got some of them, but not to 

 the extent we have. While we are fighting to keep under the pests we 

 have, we must fight to keep out the pests we have not. This pest here 

 we are very fearful of in the south, for we have thirty millions of income 

 that it could destroy, had we not money and energy and faith to combat 

 it. You have started in splendidly. But there are other pests; the 

 Morelos worm threatens us on the south. People coming from Mexico 

 can bring it in from Nogales without any hindrance. There is the fruit 

 fly, worse than the one we have, that is in foreign lands. Quarantine is 

 the thing we want to put up to our legislators. I think we have the 

 measly sum of about $7,000 for this work in this State, whereas our 

 citrus industry gives us thirty millions of dollars, and the grower of 

 citrus fruit is not the only one benefited thereby. It was well said here 

 yesterday by the flowery orator, John P. Irish, that the blocks of the 

 cities first originate in the blush of the fruit. It is true. We dig them 

 out of the soil and give you the money to rear your magnificent blocks, 

 even in this new building of San Francisco. The agriculturist, the hor- 

 ticulturist, is the man on whose shoulders you citizens in this State are 

 dependent for your welfare. We are asking that you provide us 

 quarantine. Shall we not get for the green fruit and the citrus, for the 

 great interests of the truck farmer and the grain farmer— shall we not 

 have sufficient money and sufficient men like this man who read the 



