187 
its fundamental conception, still has developed into a more definite policy a1 the" 
California Station than elsewhere. 
The necessity for something of the kind arises primarily from the peculiar diversity 
of conditions existing in this State, and the particular form of cooperation here 
developed has been a growth dependent largely upon the distinctive tendencies of 
our agriculture. 
One of the features of California farming which first strikes a stranger is the con- 
centration of the various cultures into small districts, and the more one becomes 
acquainted with these districts and their peculiarities the more significant this local 
specialization appears. Undoubtedly, we have hardly begun to determine the adap- 
tability of the larger part of the State for any particular culture, hut the existing 
centers of production represent beyond question combinations of favorable condi- 
"tions not usually found associated. Some of these conditions may he artificial, such 
as nearness to markets, etc., hut most of them are strictly natural and are those 
which we loosely group together as soil and climate. Sometimes the same fruit, 
even the same varieties, may be grown successfully in two or re geographically 
different regions and will then usually present peculiarities as to earliness or quality 
that will mark the product as distinct. For instance the early oranges of the Palermo 
and Porterville districts of central and northern California ripen a month before the 
southern California fruit; and the late apples of the Pajaro Valley, as well as of a few 
smaller coast localities, are a distinctive product of unusual quality. 
A similar series of phenomena may be observed in respect to the insects of eco- 
nomic importance. No insect is injurious over the whole region where its food plant 
is grown. The Black scale, so troublesome in southern California, is practically 
unknown in the olive and citrus orchards of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Val- 
ley. The San Jose scale, so generally destructive, is practically unknown in the 
region about Berkeley. The codling moth is unknown in some of our best and old- 
est apple orchards, even though but a few miles away and generally all over the 
State it is a pest of first importance. In the Santa Clara Valley the hopper attack- 
ing the grape is Tettigonia circittata, while inmost of the other grape-growing sect ions 
the ordinary Typhlocyba comes, belonging to a different group and with entirely 
different life-history, takes its place. 
The economics of an insect in any particular region usually presents different 
problems in the different commercial center of the production of its host plant. 
With these facts in mind it is at once perfectly clear that it is necessary to go into 
each region where a crop is grown on a commercial scale and there study the prob- 
lems involved in the suppression of the insects giving the trouble. 
It was a recognition of this general principle applying to most agricultural prob- 
lems that led to the establishment of the experiment stations all over the United 
States instead of spending the same funds for strengthening the work of the Agricul- 
tural Department at Washington. These stations, scattered about over the country, 
were calculated to be able to study the local problems where they could be best 
studied, and the eastern stations do cover the territory quite satisfactorily as far as 
their location is concerned. 
To provide adequately for the varying conditions in California it would be almost 
necessary to have a station at each important shipping center and then the ground 
would be no better covered than by the stations as they are distributed in the States 
bordering the Atlantic coast. 
A doctrine that should control the administration of an experiment station is that 
the funds should be so spent as to return to the State and the country at large the 
greatest financial benefit. I do not mean that abstract problems without immediate 
economic returns should not be investigated by the station when they are funda- 
mental to practice or theory in agriculture, but rather that they should be pursued 
only when there is prospect that in the end there will be returns to justify the effort 
more fully than other lines of research. 
In economic entomology, where our effort is to prevent losses due to insects, the 
best place for our study will ordinarily be that locality where the greatest losses 
occur, and in such a State as California it will be a different locality for almost every 
problem investigated. There is, indeed, work enough in each locality to profitably 
employ one's time indefinitely, but with our diverse conditions and lack of investi- 
gators it is usually necessary to spend only a season or part of a season in one place. 
Until within the last two years the funds available from the station fi >r entomological 
work only provided for occasional trips to localities where insect troubles occurred 
and such cursory examinations can by no means be classed as investigations. Serious 
study demands considerable time and consecutive observation of the results of 
experiments. An investigator must be located where he can study the insect under 
the best conditions and stay with it in most cases through a twelve months. 
