170 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION". 



He can also know, if he will, just how many babies are lost through the 

 agency of human diseases. If he studies it out he will see that the 

 prevention of the latter is just as important to him as the prevention 

 of the former, even from a purely business point of view. Both babies 

 and young trees represent potential investments from which there 

 should be large returns in future years. 



You are all familiar with inspection and quarantine as applied to 

 fruit-bearing trees. If your right-hand neighbor's orchard is invaded 

 by the San Jose scale you want to know it so that you may protect 

 your own trees. It is just as logical that you should wish to know 

 when your neighbor's child develops scarlet fever. The United States 

 Public Health and Marine Hospital Service is charged with the duty 

 of inspecting the passengers and crew on each incoming ship and of 

 making a careful medical examination of all immigrants. This pro- 

 cedure is the same in principle as the inspection of all imported trees 

 for evidence of plant diseases. The difference comes later when the 

 tree has to submit to continuous observation, and quarantine or fumi- 

 gation if it "catches" anything, while the newly made citizen main- 

 tains that it is nobody 's business but his own what diseases he may have 

 or how he may treat them after he gets into the United States. 



Individual liberty is a precious thing to all Americans, and in order 

 to preserve it we often permit one citizen to infringe the rights of 

 many. One third of the business of our undertakers in California is 

 based upon our exaggeration of individual freedom at the expense of 

 the public. At present we are burying annually upwards of 10,000 

 of our children and young adults because of diseases contracted from 

 other diseased persons, who came among them. Of course, the proposi- 

 tion to save these 10,000 lives a 3-ear would work a hardship on our 

 undertakers. But this would readjust itself in fifty or seventy-five 

 years, through the great increase in deaths from "old age," and mean- 

 time our industries would have the benefit of a steady annual income 

 of 10,000 workers and their accumulated families. Does this not sound 

 like a good investment? 



There is another way to estimate this. The commission on conserva- 

 tion of natural resources, appointed by President Roosevelt, estimated 

 the community value of the average life to be $1,500. California is 

 thus losing approximately $15,000,000 a year because no provision is 

 made for enforcing laws already on the statute books. All these things 

 are not theory merely, they are hard business facts. We have been 

 applying to human life in California exactly the same principles which 

 we are now condemning our timber barons for applying to our great 

 forests. With him it has been so many million feet of lumber per year, 

 with us so many million hours of labor. We have cared no more for 

 repopulation than he for reforestation. 



We must include conservation of health among our other plans for 

 the unborn generations if we are to hope that America will continue 

 her progress toward supremacy in the industrial and scientific world. 



The requirements of good health are very simple to enumerate. 

 They are sunshine, fresh air, good food, enough sleep, plenty of play, 

 work for which one is adapted, and protection from the disease 

 invaders. But these requirements are not easy to fulfill for many occu- 

 pations even in California. Are they possible on the farm? 



