WHY BAGGAGE IS INSPECTED 
The Hawaiian Islands being part of the United States, 
passengers arriving at any California port from Hono¬ 
lulu are often surprised to find that they have to 
submit to an inspection of all their baggage in similar 
manner to those who arrive from some foreign port. 
In this instance, however, the inspection is made by 
officers of the U. S. Department of Agriculture who 
examine every piece of baggage or cargo arriving from 
the Hawaiian Islands in their effort to save the fruit 
Growing Industry of the State from destructive con¬ 
sequences which would follow the introduction of the 
Mediterranean Fruit Fly or the Melon Fly. 
What You CAN and CANNOT Bring in 
To that end passengers from Hawaii are advised that 
of all the fruit and plant products of the Islands they 
are only allowed to bring in to California pineapples , 
bananas , cocoanuts and taro , since these are the only fruits 
which the dreaded fruit fly does not touch. 
Mangoes, avocados, coffee berries, sugar cane, or any 
other of the many fruit and plant products of the Is¬ 
lands must not be brought in. 
It is natural that many people homeward bound from 
the Hawaiian Islands may wish to bring with them 
specimens of Hawaiian fruits or sugar cane. To them, 
the fruit or cane may look quite innocent. Perhaps, 
however, a consideration of the following paragraphs 
will show them the urgent necessity of denying them¬ 
selves the slight pleasure the specimens might afford. 
The future of the vast fruit growing industry of Cali¬ 
fornia is literally in the hands of such travelers and of 
the officers who inspect incoming baggage and cargoes. 
Alien Enemies 
Under the title of Alien Enemies , Walter V. Woehlke 
contributed a most interesting article to Sunset Maga¬ 
zine of October, 1922, in the course of which he wrote: 
“What makes the Mediterranean fruit fly so danger¬ 
ous a pest ? 
“Its catholic appetite and its fecundity. The female 
fly—it resembles the common house fly, though it is 
smaller—pierces the skin of a wide variety of fruits— 
they have counted seventy-two different kinds of fruits 
attacked by fly maggots in Hawaii—lays three to fif¬ 
teen eggs and repeats the process. The eggs hatch in 
from three to five days, the larvae or maggots begin to 
feed and grow until they have changed the inside of 
the fruit into a mass of corruption. In twelve to twenty 
days they have become full grown, leave the fruit, bur¬ 
row into the soil and go through the pupal stage from 
which the fly emerges in ten to thirty or more days, 
according to the temperature, ready to start another 
cycle. Since the female fly will lay up to three hundred 
eggs and since six generations are possible in a year, 
amazing numbers of the fly can be produced in a remark¬ 
ably short time under favorable circumstances. 
“It’s the larva, 
the maggot, that 
does the damage. 
A hundred and 
twenty fruit fly 
maggots have been 
counted in a single 
fig. They thrive 
in scores of the 
most valuable 
fruits, including 
peaches, apricots, 
plums, pears, 
apples, oranges, 
lemons, grapefruit, 
quinces, tomatoes 
and numerous 
other varieties. 
Frequently the 
fruit on the outside 
presents the ap¬ 
pearance of per¬ 
fect health while the inside is filled with a mass of 
maggots. 
“When the Mediterranean fruit fly appeared on the 
Bermuda Islands, it found a large area of thriving, prof¬ 
itable peach orchards. For a few years the owners 
tried to fight the fly, but when the trees continued to 
produce fruit ninety per cent of which was wormy de¬ 
spite their best efforts, the growers gave up and pulled 
the trees out. The same thing happened in Spain 
The Work of the Oriental Melon Fly 
in a Young Watermelon 
