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



Los Angeles County, through the persistency of its Horticultural 

 Board, has been enabled to enlist the cooperation of the railroads and 

 express companies in the work of excluding injurious insects and 

 plant diseases, and by systematic and continued insistence has obtained 

 control of every shipment of freight or express matter appertaining 

 to plants or trees that comes into the county, and every such consign- 

 ment before it is allowed to be delivered undergoes a thorough and 

 intelligent examination by competent and experienced inspectors, thus 

 insuring absolute freedom from plant disease. Our city to a great 

 extent is a gateway to possible infections, and more particularly so 

 from the fact that of recent years there has been a great influx of 

 wealthy people who are creating fine gardens and filling them with rare 

 and costly plants from every quarter of the globe, making the closest 

 scrutiny a necessity because of the greater extent of territory from 

 which infectious plants are brought. 



It is claimed that the postal laws are sufficient to cover the point 

 aimed at, namely, making it the duty of all postmasters to inform the 

 County Board of Horticulture, or its inspectors, of the arrival of mail 

 containing plants or trees, and holding the same until they have been 

 inspected ■ but at best the law on the subject is ambiguous, and only by 

 questionable procedure can it be construed so as to meet the require- 

 ments. An amendment to the quarantine laws should be . submitted 

 making it imperative that postmasters should notify the horticultural 

 representatives of the arrival of mail from a quarantined locality before 

 its delivery to the consignee. The attention of our representatives in 

 Congress should be called to the matter and their active cooperation 

 enlisted. 



That the subject of quarantine is of paramount importance has been 

 demonstrated in Los Angeles County beyond a reasonable doubt. For 

 three years the officers of the Board of Horticulture have been destroy- 

 ing plants from Florida, Louisiana, and other dangerously infested 

 localities, all of which were found to be more or less infested. Many 

 of these consignments were of considerable value, one of them estimated 

 to be worth $100 ; but the Board insisted on their destruction, and they 

 went up in smoke. To this rigid adherence to the rules is ascribed our 

 present immunity from the white fly. 



E. J. NlLES. 



CITY INSPECTORS. 



In the assignment of topics given to the various members of the Los 

 Angeles County horticultural force, the woes of the Los Angeles city 

 inspector was allotted to me, and if the trials and tribulations of a 

 number of years' experience are to be considered, and that qualifica- 

 tion alone, the task has been placed properly. 



