PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 147 



paper and this man who presides over us— shall we not have all of them 

 to protect us from the pests we have and those we have not. 



There is a paper— it is not on the program ; I think it ought to be read 

 at this time— written by a man who of all others knows well whereof he 

 speaks, and I wish you would hear him. Mr. Cundiff of Eiverside has 

 prepared a paper on this question of quarantine, and inasmuch as we 

 have the time I think it would be wise for us not only to hear it, but we 

 .should call upon the Legislature to give us, not only $7,000, but $700,- 

 000, if we need it, to protect those interests from which the life, the 

 religious life, the family life, the social life, all the life comes. Shall we 

 rot go to the Legislature this coming year and demand— and I do not 

 think we will have to shout very loud— to get $50,000 or $100,000 or 

 $250,000 to protect all the orchards of this State from the incoming 

 pests from every corner of the world ? In the mountains this year I 

 saw the beautiful spruces going down by acres, miles and miles of them 

 beyond- saving, but if we can save our orange groves and our lemon 

 groves and deciduous groves and all our truck farms through the efforts 

 of these men, rightly assisted, we shall live and prosper, but not other- 

 wise. (Applause.) 



THE CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ehrhorn has a paper that is technical, but 

 it is touching a point that is of interest to all of us. 



PRESENT STATUS OF PARASITISM. 



By E. M. EHRHORN, of San Feancisco. 



In the course of the ages through which this world has passed, there 

 has been a constant struggle for supremacy among animals and plants, 

 a struggle for the survival of the fittest, and out of this contest there 

 has grown a certain fixed ratio between all existing life. This ratio is 

 especially marked in the animal kingdom, in the class Insecta, which 

 predominates to such an extent as to represent four fifths of this king- 

 dom, and, were it not for a counter check through insect parasitism, 

 vegetation, which is now seriously damaged, might be wholly destroyed. 

 The struggle for supremacy is continually going on in both the 

 vegetable and the animal kingdoms, and plants are struggling among 

 themselvefs, the lower forms generally trying to outdo the higher 

 forms. Animals are constantly arrayed against one another in the 

 struggle for existence, and the class Insecta, especially, takes a delight 

 in attacking members of its own class. 



We note, then, that there exists a wonderful law, which seems to guide 

 all life, and we find that by this law all enemies of plant and animal 

 life are constantly controlled. This is the ideal natural condition before 

 man interferes and causes a break in Nature 's chain of consequences by 



