12 



TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT -GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



being in favor of a restricted immigration law. In order to meet the 

 impending danger of insufficient labor, a committee was appointed to 

 organize a plan to secure laborers from the Northwest and Middle West. 

 H P. Stabler, of Yuba City, is chairman of this committee. The effort 

 is to be made only in the direction of securing young men brought up 

 in the country and accustomed to farm work. A report of progress will 

 no doubt be made at this Convention. 



Insect Pests. — I call your attention to my remarks at the Convention 

 held in San Francisco, December, 1901 (Official Report, page 9). I 

 stated that the annual expense of combatting noxious insects by 

 artificial remedies in this State amounted to $300,000, and that there 

 was no decrease from year to year, but rather an increase; and that 

 there had been expended for the investigation and in the search for 

 parasitic insects by the United States Government $2,200, and by Cali- 

 fornia less than $12,500, total expense less than $15,000, during a period 

 of thirteen years. This expenditure resulted in the saving of at least 

 $15,000,000 to the fruit interests of California, or of over $1,000 for 

 every dollar expended. In an article published in the Sunday " Record 

 Herald," of Chicago, March 1st — author Rene Bache — it is stated that 

 twelve insects cost the United States $350,000,000 a year. The article 

 names the insects and gives the probable loss by each. The author, 

 after making the detailed statement, said : " How absurd it seems that 

 this Government, with an army of 65,000 men, 234 warships, and more 

 money in its treasury than any nation ever before possessed, should be 

 helpless in a fight against twelve objectionable bugs." Can you, as 

 intelligent citizens, comprehend "how absurd " this loss and devastation, 

 when nature has furnished the remedy, practically costless, that would 

 prevent serious loss by the so-called "twelve objectionable bugs" ? 



Every civilized government has had agricultural departments and 

 entomological departments. States have followed in the same line, the 

 object being to economize labor and save the products of the soil. Yet 

 in these thousands of years, or .from the time of the first fruit orchard 

 in the garden of Edeii, this common-sense idea was not developed. Dr. 

 Hamilton said, in speaking of Sir Isaac Newton's discovery of the law 

 of gravitation, " that it took the world six thousand years to create a 

 thinker." Therefore, we must not reflect on the past, or on the inability 

 of those having these subjects in charge, for not comprehending the 

 natural law. 



Now, what I want to impress upon you is the fact that this discovery 

 was made by the California fruit-growers, who were the first to demon- 

 strate this principle — the principle of overcoming the ravages of insect 

 pests by their natural enemies. We have now on our " borders," I 

 might say, as communication overcomes distances, four pests that can 

 not be reached by sprays or fumigation. The gypsy moth in Massa- 



