TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



85 



products if you desire to market them in California. Statements in your 

 letter are not assuring, and to benefit the Island planters we cannot 

 jeopardize our own growers by admitting such products." They must 

 have taken the hint, for no more cucumbers, melons, or squash have 

 been received. The same pest was subsequently received from J apan , 

 so I believe the Hawaiians got the pest from there. 



The State of Oregon lost over $300,000 in one year from the damage 

 done their hop crop by the hop louse. Last spring two shipments, 

 numbering 152,000 hop plants, were received from Kent, England. As 

 the hop yards of Kent are known to be infested with the hop louse, we 

 refused to allow the plants to be distributed, so they were deported to 

 a State where they already have the pest. 



The stoppage and death of a pair of mongooses from India is probably 

 known to most of you. Another one came a few weeks ago from 

 Manila and met the same fate. This animal looks like a large squirrel, 

 and is death to all ground game and domestic fowls, and also eats eggs. 

 They are also reported " to destroy young pigs, kids, lambs, kittens, pup- 

 pies, rats, snakes, lizards, and frogs." 



Regarding the destruction of the first pair, Mr. Dabney, the then 

 Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, wrote: "If the mongoose once gains 

 a foothold in California, it will probably increase rapidly, and the dam- 

 age resulting from the destruction of small mammals and insectivorous 

 birds, and the consequent increase of insect pests, will be incalculable." 



The " Morelos," or " Mexican orange maggot," has made its appearance 

 in Acapulco, Mexico. Very few oranges are received from Southern 

 Mexican ports, but an invoice of eight cases, equal to sixteen boxes, 

 arrived on the steamship "Colon" from Acapulco on the 19th of Novem- 

 ber, and was unloaded the following day. Upon examination we found 

 the fruit to be infested with the above disgusting pest, so we had the fruit 

 and cases cremated. This is one of the fruit-flies that in the larvae 

 state destroy fresh fruit. This species confines its attacks to the orange. 

 The parent fly deposits her eggs in the pores of the orange peel; when 

 the young maggots hatch they burrow all through the pulp of the fruit 

 and are difficult to detect, as they are nearly of the same color as the pulp 

 and give little, if any, outward indication of their presence. We found 

 from three to fifteen maggots in a single fruit. When full grown they 

 measure about half an inch; they then leave the fruit and enter the 

 ground, where they change to the chrysalis stage and undergo their 

 change and come forth as perfect flies, ready to spread to other trees and 

 deposit their eggs on the fruit. 



In preserving specimens of the maggots for the cabinet, we put a 

 number of them into ninety-five per cent alcohol and were astonished 

 to notice their vitality. The first to succumb was after they had been 

 completely submerged for twelve minutes, and at the end of forty-two 



