PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 161 



dollars— a sum nearly equal to the entire expense of running the Fed- 

 eral Government for the same year. 



The injurious insects affecting- agriculture, timber, etc., in the United 

 States, already number more than six hundred species, and new ones 

 are continually being imported from other countries. 



Is it not time that we should demand, through our representatives 

 in Congress, a Federal quarantine law, to protect our country from this 

 unrestricted importation of destructive enemies to our agricultural 

 interests? It is estimated by competent entomologists that at least 

 eighty per cent of the injurious insects of our country were imported, 

 leaving but twenty per cent as native insects. If a national quarantine 

 law had been enacted and properly enforced fifty years ago, it is prob- 

 able that few of these injurious pests would have been introduced into 

 our country. 



It may be assumed by some that we already have all of the worst pests 

 established in the United States. This can easily be proved to be a 

 mistake. The eminent entomologist, T. D. A. Cockrell, in referring to 

 injurious insects not yet reported in the United States, names seven- 

 teen varieties of scale, insects affecting the citrus, eight affecting the 

 apple, pear, and plum, seven affecting the grapevine, five the mulberry, 

 seven the olive, three the cotton plant, and six the sugar cane. The 

 above list is composed of scale insects and classed as extremely destruc- 

 tive. Professor Cockrell states that any of these pests are liable to be 

 introduced into the United States at any time, unless a very effective 

 system of quarantine is maintained. In addition to this list of scale 

 insects, liable to be introduced at any time, can be added the Morelos 

 orange maggot of Mexico, the melon maggot of the Hawaiian Islands, 

 the Mediterranean fruit flies from Australia, as well as many other 

 injurious insects and plant diseases. 



What would it have been worth to the great pear districts of the San 

 Joaquin and Sacramento valleys if the pear blighx could have been 

 kept out ? This disease was undoubtedly introduced in shipments of 

 nursery stock from some of the Eastern States. 



Should the disease known as peach yellows become established in our 

 State, the same sad fate would befall our peach orchards. During the 

 summer of 1890 the writer made a trip through what had been the 

 greatest peach-producing district of the United States, the State of 

 Maryland. A few years before, the yellows had made its appearance in 

 that district and the dead stumps covering hundreds of acres of what 

 had once been the most productive and profitable peach section were 

 the only sad sentinels left of this once famous peach district. 



During our thirteen years of service on the horticultural commission 

 of our county we have come to know and thoroughly appreciate the 

 great value of a rigid enforcement of quarantine regulations for the 



11— FGC 



