TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



17 



California fruit-growers, because vast interests are involved and it is 

 peculiarly a question that has brought this Convention to Los Angeles. 

 Adopted. 



PRESIDENT COOPER. It will be in order to nominate a committee 

 to thank our Senator Bard. 



Mr. John Isaac, clerk of the Horticultural Commission, will act as 

 secretary of this Convention. 



I will state to the Convention that owing to the change in the law by 

 the last Legislature, many people have been under the impression that 

 the Convention would not be held. Of course you know that the State 

 Board of Horticulture was abolished and a new horticultural bill passed. 

 I qualified as Commissioner of Horticulture on the 27th of April, and 

 was necessarily detained in Sacramento to organize and commence the 

 business there, and I did not have time to incorporate many things in 

 my opening address that I should have desired to do. On my way 

 down I made some notes, and I will now read them if there is no 

 objection. 



Orange- Groiving. — Wm. C. Allen, a Philadelphia gentleman, in an 

 article written for the " Friend," April 11, 1903, states that he bought 

 large oranges in San Juan, Porto Rico, three for one cent. We have 

 much to fear from competition with the West Indies. Both orange and 

 lemon growing, to be successful, will depend largely on by-products; 

 but while turnips, squashes, and other vegetables containing glucose can 

 be turned into so-called orange marmalade, orange jelly, lemon jelly, etc., 

 it will be impossible to utilize the real product. This will be the case, 

 also, with berry-growing, and with the by-products of the deciduous 

 fruits. You can not rely upon the intelligence of the consumers, for 

 the reason that with the assurance of the dealers and the cheaper price, 

 they will buy the substitute. 



Olive- Growing. — A recent number of the "Atlanta Constitution" says: 

 "In December we shipped 2,909 tons of cotton-seed oil to Marseilles, 

 France, and it will soon come back to us as pure olive oil." This ton- 

 nage, allowing 10 per cent off for the weight of the barrels, would fill 

 4,833,000 bottles, or in round numbers 400,000 cases. The cost of refined 

 cotton-seed oil is ten times cheaper than what it costs to make olive oil; 

 therefore, if the olive-growers can not get relief by a law compelling a 

 true label on food products, they might as well root out their trees. 



Archbishop Nugent, when visiting my place some two months ago, 

 stated that while on a recent visit in Italy, large olive trees were being 

 cut down and rooted out by the growers, as the product did not reward 

 them, and the land was wanted for other purposes more remunerative. 

 In France proper, i. e,, from the Pyrenees on the west to Toulon, a 

 region once famous for its olives, one finds but few olive trees left — 

 scarcely enough to supply the local demands for cooking purposes. 

 2 — F-GO 



