PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 221 



don't have to depend upon them, and then they will come here and beg 

 you to sell them your goods. 



The Farmers' National Congress objects to free seed distribution, and 

 by a resolution of my own they took the ground that the money ex- 

 pended in the purchase and free distribution of seeds to the farmers of 

 America would be better used in maintaining or increasing the exploit- 

 ers in foreign countries for such articles as might be adapted to our 

 country, and the idea was suggested by them. 



In my perambulations I have found certain things that I thought 

 would be good for California. I was fortunate in making the acquaint- 

 ance in France of Mr. Bourson, secretary of the national fruit associa- 

 tion of that country, and if there is any country in the world that 

 believes they are the fruit country, it is France. They are not willing 

 to concede to us the prestige to which we are entitled. They know what 

 they do themselves and they believe they are the only country that is 

 worth considering. Mr. Bourson is a very important officer and his 

 acquaintance was a great favor to me. The gardens of that country 

 are surrounded by high walls built of stone or concrete with a lot of 

 broken bottles on the top to keep the boys from climbing over, and big 

 iron gates, locked, and it would have been almost impossible for me to 

 obtain an insight into that without the sesame or passport which Mr. 

 Bourson carried. I was able to visit the grape sections, the wine sec- 

 tions, the olive sections, and the prune sections, and even to get into 

 the prune packing-houses, something very few people are able to do. 

 Among other places was the estate of Baron Rothschild, about thirty 

 miles from Paris, containing fifty thousand acres, and half of it as com- 

 pletely virgin as it was when Caesar occupied that country and devoted 

 it to all kinds of game. The pheasant and the wild boar come out in the 

 evening to feed, and when frightened run back into the forest. But I 

 went there to see fruit-growing in the high style of the art known 

 to the French horticulturist. Among other things I found a new rasp- 

 berry just being propagated. They have Burbanks over there — not 

 quite so prominent, but they do things sometimes. That raspberry 

 was bearing that year for the first time. It was nearly as big as my 

 thumb, three or four times as big as ours, and apparently as rich 

 in flavor and as bright in color, and it occurred to me that it would be 

 a good thing to introduce it into California. 



When I was at Fontainebleau, the great table grape section, I was 

 shown the famous Due de Voisart. It was the biggest grape I ever saw 

 and it was as handsome as it was big. I only tasted one. I asked the 

 privilege of tasting that grape, and the party looked around to find a 

 deformed bunch and handed me one with a look as much as to say, 

 "Eat a little and hand the rest back." I ate it by pieces and was 

 satisfied with its flavor. There might have been one defect; it seemed 



