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APPENDIX C. 



REPORTS OF COUNTY HORTICULTURAL COMMISSIONERS. 



BUTTE COUNTY. 



Chico, October 13, 1894. 



To the Honorable State Board of Horticulture: 



Gentlemen : As the time has come around once more when we are 

 to report to you the work we have done as County Horticultural Com- 

 missioners, and the condition of all things pertaining to horticultural 

 interests, I beg leave to submit the following report from the Chico sec- 

 tion of Butte County: 



During last fall and winter I visited nearly every orchard as well as 

 town lot where there were fruit trees of any kind in my part of the 

 county, and some of the most thorough work was done in eradicating 

 the pernicious scale that has ever been accomplished in the county. In 

 a few cases parties promised to spray, but did not do it, and when I got 

 around to do the spraying for them the buds were so far advanced that I 

 did not think it safe to do it. The fruit trees about town, and there are 

 lots of them, were very badly affected with pernicious scale, but in nearly 

 every case the owner cut down and burned or had them sprayed. In 

 three yards I found yellow scale on orange trees. They were all sprayed 

 with lime, sulphur, and salt or I X L, without injury to the foliage. I 

 warned the parties that there was danger of losing the leaves, but they 

 said they would kill the scale if they had to kill the trees to do it. I 

 found black scale on two lots of olive trees shipped here from the 

 southern part of the State. They were all sprayed or dipped and are 

 now clean. The nurserymen of this county have used great care with 

 their stock and it has been found very clean; all trees showing any 

 signs of root knot have been burned. One large lot of trees shipped here 

 was badly affected with knot, especially prune on Myrobalan root. I 

 have heard it said that the root knot would not appear on Myrobalan 

 root, but some of the worst knots I ever saw were on this lot. After Mr. 

 Craw's discovery of the pear leaf blister mite, I found that we had quite 

 a sprinkling of it here, and I am convinced that we have had it here for 

 a long time. Nothing has been done for it here. 



Some trees are dying every year from the oak root fungus, and when 

 a tree dies there is no use putting in a peach, plum, apricot, or prune, 

 but thus far I have not found any effect on pear, so whenever I lose 

 a tree I am filling up with pear and advising others to do the same. 

 The southern vine disease has taken nearly all of the Mission and Rose 

 of Peru grapes, and the Tokay and Muscat are beginning to show that 

 it has got hold of them. The spots are not quite as bright as they are 

 on the cuts I have seen, still they are quite distinct. 



