TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



107 



need to ask the Government, or Sacramento, or anybody else, but do it 

 ourselves. 



PROFESSOR COOK. I would like to hear from Mr. Pease. He is 

 a modest man, but he has done a lot of interesting work in this matter, 

 and I would like to here from him. 



MR. PEASE. That is on the subject of the thrips, I suppose? 



VICE-PRESIDENT GRIFFITH. Yes, sir. 



MR. PEASE. My attention was first called to the thrips business 

 on the fourth day of February. A couple of gentlemen called with 

 specimens. Some of these specimens had gone in a regular shipment 

 of oranges to New York, and the fruit had been returned to show the 

 condition in which they arrived in New York. The specimens were 

 exhibited and the spots were dark brown. Where the thrips had done 

 the work they were brown all around. The gentlemen were uncer- 

 tain — did not know what was the cause of the spots. They came to me 

 from Professor Cook, and asked me to send specimens to L. 0. Howard. 

 So I sent to Professor Howard, by express, a box of the oranges with 

 spots on them, asking him, if possible, to take measures, even to the 

 sending of a man here to find out what was the cause of the spotting. 

 I also sent specimens by mail to Newton B. Pierce, of Santa Ana, who 

 is in the Government employ. After I had sent those away I took my 

 little glass — I carry a pretty good hand lens — and studied the orange a 

 little myself. Right in the spots, on fresh specimens from the orchards, 

 I found the molted skins of minute insects; and I wrote to Professor 

 Cook what I had found, and said that from the nature of the work 

 I should expect to find a minute sucking insect. On the 12th of 

 February, eight days later, I went into the orchard where I had been 

 told there was the worst spotting, and when I found the oranges that 

 showed the fresh marks of the cutting, there I also found the insects at 

 work, and I procured probably a hundred specimens by taking my 

 knife and shaving off a little piece and dropping it into the phial. The 

 first two times I went to the orchard I got all the way from one to four- 

 teen insects from a single spot, showing that the insects are gregarious, 

 that is, they go in numbers. I brought those specimens to Professor Cook, 

 some of them, and sent some to L. 0. Howard at Washington. By the 

 way, after I had sent the box of fruit by express, I received from Washing- 

 ton a letter that was not very encouraging. Perhaps some of you may 

 have noticed the newspaper controversy on the subject. L. 0. Howard 

 stated that placing a piece of the orange under a microscope failed to 

 show any indication of insect work. But as soon as I found the insects 

 I sent him a bottle of the specimens on those little chips that I had 

 taken off and placed in diluted alcohol. And in answer to that letter he 

 stated that I might be right. Or, by the way, C. L. Marlatt, assistant 

 to Mr. Howard, in the first letter, in the absence of Mr. Howard, stated 

 I might be right in assigning the damages to the oranges to these 



