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After many years we have succeeded in having laws passed that have 

 stood the tests of our courts. It would be impossible under our present 

 strict quarantine system for injurious insect pests to obtain a foothold 

 and commit the devastation that many such pests did before we had 

 the quarantine system. There are yet pests and diseases as destruc- 

 tive as any known, which destroy crops and trees, and which eternal 

 vigilance alone will keep out. What would our great prune crop be 

 worth should the plum curculio obtain a footing, or our peach crop 

 should the peach yellows get in? It is not alone to the keeping out of 

 pests that our quarantine work is devoted, but to keeping down those 

 already here. The work of the Vedalia cardinalis on the cottony 

 cushion scale is known to you. Owing to the efforts of the State Board 

 of Horticulture we have an equally efficient foe of the black scale, the 

 Rhizobius ventralis, while parasites for the greater part of our pests have 

 been discovered and propagated. Who can estimate the value of this 

 work alone to the fruit growers of our State? We may claim that it is 

 worth almost the annual return of the fruit crop, for had it not been 

 for our quarantine measures I doubt whether the fruit output of Cali- 

 fornia would have had any great value to-day. 



The work of the Rhizobius ventralis is winning for itself and for this 

 Board, to whose efforts its introduction is wholly due, golden opinions 

 on all sides. Interested parties sought to decry it for some time and 

 belittle the work of the Board, but even the worst of these has been 

 compelled to acknowledge the wonderful work it is doing in freeing the 

 orchards of black scale and all other scales of that species. During the 

 past season numbers of colonies of this ladybird, numbering many 

 million insects, have been distributed over the State, and it is safe to 

 say that the black scale is doomed, and the Rhizobius and Vedalia will 

 go on record as the greatest of boons to California orchardists. Besides 

 these, numerous other parasites have been introduced and propagated, 

 all of which are doing good work; but these two have done such phenome- 

 nal work and reflect so much credit upon our State Board of Horti- 

 culture, that I have been tempted to allude to them separately. It is 

 impossible to estimate the great benefit these insects have proved to 

 the State. Suffice it to say that it is incomputable. Every means 

 should be put in our hands to pursue the investigation to its fullest 

 extent. I refer you to the discussion on beneficial insects at the Los 

 Angeles convention a year ago, and especially to the remarks of Major 

 C. J. Berry and Judge Heath, and a resolution on pages 298 and 299, of 

 the report for 1893-4. I also refer you to the report of two special com- 

 mittees, on pages 336 and 337 of the same report. Those reports, as 

 adopted, provide for the establishment of a Bureau of Statistics, an 

 appropriation for the importation of predaceous insects, and a Vagrant 

 Law. 



In recognition of our great industry and in honor of its followers, 

 June 8th was set apart as Horticultural Day at the Midwinter Fair, 

 and was celebrated under the auspices of the Board. A very large con- 

 course was present, appropriate addresses were made, and an offshoot 

 of the original olive tree — from which dates the horticultural period in 

 California — was planted with due ceremonies. The day passed off 

 admirably, and, like our annual conventions, it seemed to draw those 

 who participated in it nearer together, and made all feel that among the 

 orchardists of California, at least, there was no north, no south, but we 



