58 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS ? CONVENTION. 



hard matter for a local inspector, a count}' inspector, to know every 

 insect that comes into the count}'. In a number of cases I think the 

 county commissioner will find that if he does not know the insect he 

 may find on nursery trees or fruits or cuttings, he will have to refer it, 

 probably, to some one else. In San Francisco we find that most of our 

 stocks of fruits and trees that we have to deal with come from across 

 the water by boat, and they come in the shape of fruits, as pineapples 

 and bananas shipped in crates or express shipments or in hand plants. 

 I think, perhaps, one of the most important phases of our work in San 

 Francisco is to watch the hand plants or small lots of fruit that come 

 in through the passengers. As an illustration of this, about a month 

 ago a gentleman brought in half a dozen, or quite a few — there were 

 a dozen plants in the shipment, and on the under side of two or three 

 of the leaves on one plant — there must have been three dozen leaves 

 on the plant, but on the under side of two or three there was a little 

 colony of thrips, adults, both male and female, and the larvae, a full 

 family. That could very easily have been passed over and it would 

 have established itself wherever the plant went, and if it happened that 

 the insect took more favorably to other plants, it might easily have 

 become a serious pest. The same is true of scale insects and some of 

 the larger insects, such as katydids or grasshoppers, that may lay 

 their eggs inside of the plants; you may have cuttings and the eggs 

 will be placed down inside of the plants so there is no mark placed on 

 the outside; they could be very easily passed there, and unless the 

 inspector is quite well acquainted with the different groups of insects 

 and their habits of depositing and habits of hiding, it will be quite 

 easy to pass them over. The quarantine of insects within the State is 

 also a very important matter. Just last week I returned from a trip 

 through the Porterville, Lindsay, and Exeter orange section, on the 

 advice of Mr. Jeffrey especially. It was thought that the orchards in 

 that district were free from certain scale insects, the red, the yellow, 

 the purple, and the black scales, and we know that almost any one 

 of these forms or all of them are common throughout the orange sec- 

 tions in the south. After looking over the field I found that it was 

 true that the insects were not there, and the people of Porterville and 

 the whole section there are entitled to protection against these insects 

 that might be introduced on nursery stock from the southern part of 

 the State, or from any part of the State or from without the State. 

 The point is a very important one just now to the Tulare County 

 orchardists. 



PRESIDENT JEFFREY. I would like to emphasize one thing that 

 Mr. Moulton said about knowing pests. He went down to Tulare 

 County at my request the other day. There has been a long dispute 

 down there about whether Katy did or Katy didn't. He is going to 

 bring you some oranges to-morrow to show you that Katy did. He will 

 show you oranges with great holes cut out of them, and they have got 

 a katydid brand there, where they separate thousands of oranges and 

 call them the katydid brand, because the katydid ate a little spot out 

 when it was as big as your thumb and now it is a blemish as big as a 

 quarter. Now, Mr. Moulton, or any good entomologist, could see those 

 oranges and tell those people just what had done that damage. This is 

 the reason that entomology is valuable, this is the reason your horticul- 



