TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 55 

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MR. DORE. Mr. Chairman, it appears to me that the gentleman 

 who has addressed the Convention might spend a little time in drafting 

 a resolution asking from our General Government and Secretary of 

 Agriculture just that kind of work here; and when this body shall ask 

 for it as a body, we are quite likely to receive consideration and atten- 

 tion. There occurred to me during the afternoon a few questions that I 

 would like to ask. I want to know this: Is this trouble increasing in 

 the orange-growing district of Southern California? 



MR. REED. Not to speak of. 



MR. DORE. It has always been with you to a greater or less extent? 

 MR. REED. Yes. 



MR. DORE. One question that has aroused my curiosity. I have 

 been studying the orange business a week or so. What proportion of 

 your oranges are afflicted with this unaccountable disease so as to destroy 

 their value? 



MR. GRIFFITH. In answer to the question of the gentleman, and 

 also in answer to the causes of puffing, I want to say the matter of the 

 percentage of puffing is a varying quantity. This year there are more 

 puffed oranges, I believe, than there were last year. 



MR. DORE. More frost, wasn't there? 



MR. GRIFFITH. No, I think not. There was more frost last year 

 in my orchard than this year. Now, the cause of puffing is something 

 for which I have never found a reasonable explanation. In my orchard 

 men have marked trees that got dry and hot, expecting to find puffy 

 oranges, yet didn't find any. I had puffy oranges this year on land 

 where not a pound of fertilizer of any kind had been put for two years. 

 There are two points, to my mind, eliminated from the puffing of oranges. 

 The orange trees bore very heavily this year, and this year the oranges 

 puffed more than last year. 



MR. DORE. Can you suggest anything in which this season differs 

 from last season? 



MR. GRIFFITH. It has been a chilly and damp season. More water 

 has fallen this year than usual, and there has been more chilliness and 

 coldness in the atmosphere. 



MR. DORE. Then, might not cold and wet be the inducing causes? 



MR. GRIFFITH. Possibly. Yet I have known this same puffiness 

 to occur in the dry seasons that have preceded the last two or three 

 years. This season, however, it seems to be somewhat more pronounced. 

 I don't know that the cause can be controlled. I sometimes think it is 

 because of the irregularity of rainfall, because the rainfall comes at a 

 season when it ought not to come; and sometimes I think it is because 

 we let the ground get dry and then water again. Some of my neighbors 

 say, "You must keep your orchards absolutely wet all through the fall, 

 and then the fruit won't puff." One of my neighbors who told me that 



