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as to the effectiveness of this statute; the Constitution also says that these 

 laws must not conflict with any general statute law; now, it may be that 

 the existing laws that we now have will have to be repealed to some extent 

 or so far as they cover this question; the machinery of the present statute 

 seemed to be sufficient, they are inchoate, they are crude; to illustrate, 

 where the power is given to the Supervisors of the county to appoint a local 

 commissioner or a local fruit inspector or some such office, it compels him 

 to inspect orchards and to notify the owners to exterminate within a certain 

 time these insects, or to commence to do it, or to cleanse them in some way, 

 and then it provides for him a small compensation, and makes the com- 

 pensation and the cost of the extermination, if the party does not do it, a 

 lien on the land, and makes him engage in a quite important lawsuit to get 

 his little fee. At all events, in that respect and in many others it is entirely 

 impracticable unless the fruit growers, or unless some man or body of men 

 will take hold of it and tend to it and work out the fruit interest. Now, it 

 is utterly impossible for any headway to be made against insects and pests 

 by the orchardists of this State unless the fruit growers themselves take the 

 matter in hand and work up and attend to it as one of the most important 

 things in their business — it can be of no value in any event or with any 

 law. Now, if the fruit growers of the State, of the county, or where the 

 counties are large, of portions of counties, or districts, will get together and 

 organize and have regular meetings and every man attend to his interests 

 and every man be willing to put his hands into his pockets and take out 

 some money to carry on this thing, there will be no trouble about it and it 

 can be done. 



I have been told that in several counties (Santa Clara for one), a com- 

 mittee of fruit growers would go before the Supervisors and ask for the 

 appointment of an officer, and they would be told that no other interest 

 had ever asked for such extraordinary aid from the county, and that they 

 did not feel disposed to grant it. Now, I am not surprised at that, but I say 

 that under the new Constitution, these ordinances can be passed and have 

 been passed, for it embraces sanitary measures and everything of a police 

 and local nature; and also the imposing of high or low license on the liquor 

 traffic; and in different shapes it has been taken to the Supreme Court, and 

 in every instance where the issue was fairly made, it is held to be perfectly 

 constitutional and valid. It was tried a short time ago, where the Super- 

 visors, by ordinance, levied a special tax on sheep grazing, independent of 

 and in addition to the ordinary ad valorem tax; there was one case where 

 it was imposed to cover a certain sum on local sheep owned by residents 

 of the county and on sheep driven from other counties. That was held to 

 be bad, but in some other county the issue was fairly made, and it was 

 held to be valid. 



Of course, as you know, it has been tried many times as to the validity 

 of the ordinance for high license, and in every case it has been upheld, but 

 as I have said, we should not depend upon the law entirely; we should 

 raise in every fruit-growing section a sufficient sum of money, employ the 

 best legal talent, and have a first class ordinance drawn, and when once 

 drawn with a great deal of care it can be in a great measure copied 

 throughout the State, and I have no question but that it will be perfectly 

 effectual. What we want is a concise and clean-cut bill. We can't find 

 it in the general statutes; we cannot go to the Legislature and secure it in 

 a short session of sixty days. We want a bill without any circumlocution, 

 and when it is made we want the moral support of the fruit growers them- 

 selves, so that when the ordinance is passed and the appointment is made, 

 and the mode of exterminating insects is outlined, to go before the Board 



