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



tion of nursery stock and the work that has been done for years by our 

 State Commission. I think I am right in saying that not a single pest 

 in the State of California that Ave have to-day has been introduced 

 since the quarantine office was established at the port of San Fran- 

 cisco. Am I right in that. Mr. Jeffrey? 

 PRESIDENT JEFFREY. I think so. 



MR. CUNDIFF. The only case is the introduction of the white fly. 

 That, as you know, broke out three years ago in three separate places 

 in this State, and be it said to the credit of the State Horticultural 

 Commission that there is not a case on record in any of the works on 

 entomology where a pest that was once established was ever eradicated 

 in the manner that this was. I understand that the pest has been abso- 

 lutely eradicated, or that they have been unable to discover any in any 

 of those three places, Oroville, Marysville, Bakersfield. The pests we 

 have in California were nearly all of them introduced pests — that is, 

 I am speaking of insect pests — and quite a good many of the diseases, 

 that came to us mostly in the form of nursery stock in the early days 

 before there was any legislation on the subject. In fact, California is 

 the pioneer, so far as I know, in beginning the inspection of nursery 

 stock as a method of protecting horticultural interests. I don't think 

 there was ever any organized system in any other State until it was 

 inaugurated in this State. If the system that we now have could have 

 been inaugurated thirty } T ears before it was, perhaps four fifths — yes, 

 I dare say, nine tenths — of the pests that are to-day costing many 

 thousands of dollars all over this State, and especially in our citrus 

 districts, could have been kept out of here. If one half of them could 

 have been kept out it would have paid the expenses of the State Horti- 

 cultural Commission for five hundred years, but, of course, that is 

 past history. We try to profit by the mistakes made in the past. The 

 pests that we have in the State were pretty well established before any 

 horticultural law was enacted. The value of a system of inspection is 

 that it prevents insect pests being carried in in their county shipments. 

 The closer that is done the better it is done, the less trouble we will have 

 from one county to another. Take the county I live in. "We have 

 other counties adjoining us. They have certain kinds of scale pests 

 and mites that affect citrus stock that we have not in our county. We 

 simply examine everything coming into the county, and there are cer- 

 tain pests that we do not allow stock to come in from sections that are 

 liable to have those pests. Purple scale is one of the worst pests in the 

 citrus district. We do not allow it to come into Riverside County. If 

 stock comes in from a district known to be affected by purple scale, act- 

 ing under an ordinance, we simply give the shipper twenty-four hours 

 to remove it from the county. If at the end of that time it has not 

 been removed from the depot or express office, we take it out and 

 destroy it. We have in that way kept .our county free. I think San 

 Bernardino has pursued the same policy and is free from the pest, 

 although all the counties around us have it. I might say the same of 

 a number of other pests, they have simply been kept out by careful 

 inspection. Many counties have pests that the adjoining county has 

 not at all. There isn't any reason why the adjoining county should be 

 visited by a misfortune that some other county has met. It can only 

 be done by inspecting the nursery stock and looking carefully after it. 



