TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 9 



purchasi. We hear that in Hawaii this pest has been completely de- 

 stroyed by a ladybird. The agent sent to the Islands to procure colonies 

 of this ladybird, to be distributed in the infested districts, could find 

 only a few specimens, and the problem he had to solve was to find 

 sufficient food to make a success in propagating the beetles to send here. 



It is not necessary to reiterate what performed this important service 

 to the fruit-growers. The history is well known to all of you. There 

 is no doubt in my mind but that we will be confronted from time to 

 time with new and dangerous pests. We should therefore be organized 

 and ready to meet them with their natural enemies. 



I beg to refer you to my address made one year ago at Fresno, in 

 which I urged that a sufficient appropriation be made and a special 

 bureau be established as a part of the State Board of Horticulture, for 

 the investigation of predaceous insects and parasites. This work should 

 be continuous and permanent. We have recently read of a worm, 

 something like an army worm, destroying the alfalfa fields by the thou- 

 sands of acres in the middle West. Also, of the attack on the beet 

 fields. It is possible that this worm may reach us here and cause great 

 loss to the sugar-beet industry, as also to the alfalfa fields of the San 

 Joaquin Valley. » 



The codling moth is probably more generally distributed throughout 

 the United States than any other fruit pest, and no doubt causes greater 

 loss than any other known pest. In many places the growing of 

 apples and pears has been abandoned on account of it, and yet not one 

 dollar has been appropriated to investigate or to search for a possible 

 enemy to keep it in check. Thousands of dollars are spent every year 

 in spraying with poisons to save a part of the crop. 



In Hamilton's Essays, where the discovery of the attraction of gravi- 

 tation by Sir Isaac Newton is referred to, it is said that it took the world 

 six thousand years to produce a thinker. How much longer will be 

 required to produce in the minds of the cultivators of trees and plants 

 the comprehension of natural laws? The late Baron Ferdinand von 

 Mueller, the great botanist of Australia, has laid down the theory that 

 the human mind cannot be properly or fully developed without coming 

 in contact with growing plants. According to this theory, the fruit- 

 grower and the farmer should be in advance of any other class. When 

 nature plants a forest she makes no mistakes. She plants the right trees 

 in the right places; flowers, annuals, bulbous roots, flowering shrubs and 

 vines, all flourish in their beauty and grandeur. No enemies — insects or 

 brute animals — materially disturb them, at least until invaded by man. 

 If we wish to succeed we must follow nature and maintain the same 

 balance as created. 



The State Board has available $7,500 to be spent in the search for the 

 enemies of the destroyers of our fruits. We have an agent, George 



