50 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 



office in his easy chair and throws out his come-alongs, and we have to 

 come. Now, taking the cue, I am going to call on a number of the 

 commissioners here to-night for several topics that have been suggested. 

 The first is the better organization of county commissioners. I am 

 going to ask Mr. S. A. Pease of San Bernardino to address us on that 

 topic. (Applause.) 



MR. PEASE. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Rodgers, Ladies andGentlt m en: I 

 think in the discussion of this subject a good way to get at it would be to 

 go back over some of the old methods that obtained in the early years. 

 Of course, the commission has not come to its present state of efficiency 

 by a single jump. We have gone by slow progress, the way most good 

 things go, and I will just quote some of the shortcomings of the com- 

 mission as I found it in 1896, when I was first appointed. I had been 

 an inspector for a time and was appointed to the office of horticultural 

 commissioner, and I went to San Bernardino and investigated the 

 doings that had been going on for the seven years previous to this. I 

 found at that time, there being a three-man commission, that they had 

 done as commissioners sometimes did in that day. had divided the 

 county into three separate districts. They were all citrus districts. 

 Each commissioner took his section, a third of the county. I found 

 further that in the operation of the horticultural commission each man 

 used a different method to accomplish his work in the county. Right 

 to start on, that did not appear to me as very good. My idea of the 

 work of the commission was that the commissioner should be posted on 

 his duties and that every part of the county should have the one best 

 method of controlling insect pests and caring for the trees. One of 

 the methods that I found and objected to at that time was that one 

 section of the commission was very arbitrary, and if people got in trees 

 and plants that showed they were not well posted as a commissioner 

 should be posted, and oftentimes, in treating trees that were shipped 

 in, if they had some little pest on them, they treated them with such 

 severity that it killed the trees. Of course, this brought the commission 

 into disrepute and a great many people were against the commission.. 

 Another thing they did, they were not particular as to the time of the 

 year. At that time the San Jose scale was pretty bad. I think the 

 whole length of the State, on the deciduous trees, and had to be cared 

 for. They would wait until the trees were almost ready to blossom and 

 then would serve a notice on a man to clean up in ten days, and then 

 perhaps they would wait a month until the trees were in full bloom and 

 go around and find that some of the men had not sprayed their trees, 

 and they would order a man to spray his trees with salt, lime and sul- 

 phur and kill the whole crop of fruit. There was no method. The law 

 dictates plainly about how the work shall be done, and yet they used 

 to order their inspectors out and inspect all the nursery stock in the 

 country at their pleasure. If it was deciduous stock and when it was 

 to be taken up the nurseryman would want the root inspected, they 

 would say, ''All right; we have inspected the stock once and we will 

 do this at your expense," and charged him. instead of $2.50 a day. as 

 the law required — charged him 40 cents an hour. Well, you can imagine 

 the state of affairs when I went there. They had a paper that was run bw 

 an organization. It was called a political paper, and. as was frequently 

 the case, they changed the editor of the paper, and it was customary- 



