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tioned in various counties, all paid men, and then they had laws on the 

 subject, and their mode of conducting this warfare against insects is, I 

 think, admirable, and should by all means be copied here if you wish to 

 accomplish anything. When this gentleman explained the system it ap- 

 peared to me to be very arbitrary, more on the military style, and in fact 

 the country is governed to a great extent on military tactics, but in this 

 particular they are extremely rigorous, and he gave me to understand that 

 this local man is governed from the head organization, and this lowest man 

 is the man that is held responsible — personally liable for fine and imprison- 

 ment if he don't attend to his duties properly; he would have his star or 

 badge of office and go to the fruit grower and look around, and if he dis- 

 covered any evidence of insects he would tell this man to apply these 

 remedies, and to apply them right away, to-day. " Well," I said, " suppos- 

 ing you don't wish to ? " Well, "0," he says, " if he don't wish to, the officers 

 travel along with the apparatus, and he would bring in his apparatus and 

 the remedy as given him by the chief professor; if he didn't apply that, it 

 would be applied by the government, and this man would immediately be 

 brought before the government and fined, or imprisoned, or both; there was 

 no appeal to a jury or anything." "Well," I said, "isn't this extremely 

 rigorous ?" He said, " We treat pests just the same as cholera and yellow 

 fever should be treated ; it is extremely dangerous. Now," he said, " it 

 costs France a great deal more for its neglect of this thing that Germany 

 has done, than it costs to pay the indemnity for the war." 



I read an account yesterday, that if true, is the most singular fact that 

 has been announced in this century: It cost France 400,000,000 pounds 

 English money, to fight the phylloxera, and they are still fighting it. Now 

 I do not know how much the State of California would sell for if put up at 

 auction to-day; I don't think it would sell for $2,000,000,000. Can any one 

 tell what the war of the Rebellion cost this country ? I don't think it cost us 

 $2,000,000,000. And they are still fighting — Germany does not fight because 

 it has placed its line of officers there and they are responsible. We have 

 not heard that Germany has got the phylloxera, and this is the reason; if 

 they discover the slightest trace of phylloxera they dig up every vine down 

 to the finest roots and burn it up with kerosene oil and fill up the land. I 

 said, isn't this an injustice? He said, it is an injustice to this man, and 

 he suffered, but he says we have kept Germany free from the phylloxera 

 and we propose to keep it free; it is an enemy. Here at the present time 

 if my friend Mr. Klee is permitted to go into an orchard and look around, 

 well and good; if not, there is no help for it. 



There is another matter. If any one had proposed that matter to me, Mr. 

 President, some two or three years ago, as I proposed it to this body, now, 

 I should have thought him a little previous, and probably that he didn't 

 know what he was talking about; but these things as they appeared to me 

 upon examination, one fact upon another, and their inferences, gradually 

 worked themselves into a consistent idea, and that is that it might be pos- 

 sible, notwithstanding the cheapness of labor in Europe, that we can, in 

 fact, compete with the people of Europe, and I confess that I have had 

 great misgivings in the matter. Passing through Spain I inquired the price 

 of labor. One peseta, which is not quite twenty cents; no board, no lodg- 

 ings. The price here is a dollar a day and board — equivalent to a dollar 

 and a half; but I reasoned, how is it possible that these raisins that are 

 raised at the rate of twenty cents a day come into New York City, and we 

 meet them there at the rate of a dollar and a half a day and create a 

 market? This can be explained only by two reasons. One, that they 

 bought the raisins because we are acquainted, and they like us and like to 



