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State could take action in the matter. This communication from the 

 Grange of Santa Clara County I believe should not receive the assent of 

 the fruit growers, for the reason that the whole question has been settled. 

 The Constitution is too clear for any question on the subject of taxation; 

 the duty of the Assessor is pointed out by law; the Constitution provides 

 that the tree shall be assessed separately. Under the old Constitution, 

 and the assessment laws in vogue, improved property was assessed as 

 improved property at its value, but under the new Constitution of this 

 State it becomes incumbent on the Assessor to assess your land as unim- 

 proved and add to that the improvements. Now what difference does it 

 make if I have property that is worth $200 improved, and the Assessor 

 comes along and he assesses my land at $100 an acre and assesses my fruit 

 trees and improvements at $100 more ? It is the same assessment that he 

 would levy anyway, only in the first instance I see it, and in the second 

 instance I don't. A question was up in Santa Clara County to the Supreme 

 Court which presented nearly this question; the Assessor assessed their 

 fruit trees separately, as he was authorized to do by law; the question arose 

 as to the constitutional right to assess trees, claiming that it was a part of 

 the realty and should be assessed with the realty, as the roots go down into 

 the ground — a conveyance, you are aware, of land conveys everything under 

 the surface and above the surface, and it would convey trees or buildings 

 without mentioning them in the conveyance — but the Supreme Court held 

 that it was entirely constitutional and the duty of the Assessor to assess 

 the land and the trees separately, and it has been done so, and that being 

 the decision of the Supreme Court, it settles the question until we have a 

 new Constitutional Convention and change our Constitution. I think it 

 would be well to appoint a committee, to report this afternoon; some action 

 might be taken by this convention, and I move that a committee of five 

 be appointed, to act in unison with the State Board of Horticulture, and 

 report some resolution for the action of this convention. 



Mb. Wilcox: Mr. Leib, who is one of our best lawyers, carried that mat- 

 ter to the Supreme Court, and I understand the decision rested not on the 

 Constitution, but on the statute law of this State, which required the As- 

 sessor to assess trees separately. 



Mr. Stabler: The only apparent reason to make a change in the way 

 of assessing property in this State, is because it is too high; now, there 

 can be no difference in the assessment. My friend Mr. Wilcox does not 

 intimate that his property is assessed too high. I know as a fact that my 

 orchard property is not assessed half high enough; it is not assessed at one 

 third or one fourth of what I would take for it, and it looks to me to be 

 rather a single-idea matter to contest a thing that there is no reason for, 

 except that you hope to keep a few cents more in pocket by merging the 

 two things together and not assessing them constitutionally. 



Mr. Hatch: Some years ago there was an effort made to have a law 

 passed for the suppression of the insect pest. At that time had the effort 

 been successful, we might have had no insect pests compared with what 

 we have. Now the land is covered with them, and we have no opportuni- 

 ties to free ourselves except it may be as Mr. Lubin proposes — as has been 

 done by monarchial government. There are men in this country who, if 

 they had but a dozen trees, would fight any law; they would spend $1,000 

 where their tax might not be 25 cents, rather than have something done 

 for the general good. It would seem as if there ought to be a little of this 

 monarchy business in a thing of that kind. In the case of a glandered 

 horse, I believe there is a law that will cause it to be killed; and a tree 

 that has a pest that is incurable and contagious, ought to be killed. But 



