The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-08-24
V|NE-GRQWERS AROUSED.
They Realize the Menace From
the Spread of Phyl-
lOxera.
Arthur Hayne Comments Severely
on the Inaction of Viticultural
Commissioners.


Commissioners.
Among the results of the Farmers Sum-
mer School at Camp Roache. published ex-
clusively in The CALL, one of the most i'm
portant has been the stirring up OF the
yine-growers of the State to realization
of the danger with which they are men
aced by the hitherto unnoticed spread of
the phylloxera in new districts. Inciden-
tally, public attention has been drawn to
the work of certain State officials. The
part the university experts took in this
movement by doing what should have
been done by others has caused some re-
sentiment on the part OF the officials and
their friends, who dislike to have out
siders do simple work that they them
selves are paid for doing. They have
manifested this by ungraciously acknowl-
edging the truth of the discoveries, but at
the same time accusing the university OF
having been the cause of the trouble. No
little Indignation was expressed to-day by
the friends of the university when they
read in some of the daily papers that the
university was blamed. To-day CALL
reporter visited Mr.. Hayne, who expressed
himself as convinced that the vine-growers
of the State had too much sense to believe
any such absurd stories.
Eyes, l have seen the articles in the
Wine and Spirits Review and in the EX-
aminer, and cannot help smiling at the
beautiful simplicity of the chief execu-
tive officer of the commission being
authorized by resolution of the wine
growers to inspect the vineyards duty
for which he has been paid $500 year
by the State for many years. The early
discovery of the pest in Livermore' dates
frcm the present month, when it was
found by the growers themselves sending
samples of vines to the university. The
pest has existed in the Livermore Valley
for four years, Judging by the appearance
of the vines and the testimony of the
growers. After the chief executive officer
had learned that the phylloxera was really
there he issued the call dated the 20th)
for meeting on the I'D. From the results
of this meeting it appears that In spite OF
special acts OF the Legislature defining his
duties and appropriating him a salary of
$3.50 month it required a resolution of
the growers to induce him to inspect their
vines-the very duty he is hired to per-
form. 1t must indeed have been a bitter
pill for the salaried officers of the commits
sion to find that the people begin to sus-
pect that they have either neglected their
them.
1.-THE writer in the Wine and Spirits Re-
view tries to cover up the neglect of duty
on the part of the officials by the silly asser-
tions that the phylloxera plat at Berkeley
should be destroyed. He and the rest of
them know very well that no such plat ex-
lists, has not for year, and that they are
willfully trying to deceive the public.
There was an isolated plat of seventy-ive
vines on which the pest appeared fifteen
years ago. This plat was utterly destroyed
nearly ten years ago, and when the pres
ence of the pest was first discovered every
vine was subjected to thorough treat
ment with insecticides that entirely de-
stroyed them before the vines were rooted
out and burned. There are now large
eight-year old olive trees growing on this
much -talked-of phylloxera plat. If, then,
the Livermore vineyards were infected
from this plat "a preposterous supposition,
for no cuttings ever left the plat, it would
mean that the pest has been in Livermore
Valley more than eight years, and it took
the efficient executive officer till this week
to find it; even then he had to follow the
lead of the university.
"The statement that the vineyard of J.
T. Doyle was infected from the university
plat (Which he planted and maintained at
his own expense, merely allowing the uni
versity to utilize his experiments) is utterly
absurd. 1t is to be noted that thus far
none of the outlying university plats,
either at Mr.. Doyle's or elsewhere, have
been infected at all. Now if the infection
had been carried by the vines on these
plats why is il that they have not been
attacked, for they are not on resistant
roots? 1t seems that the only excuse they
can offer for having allowed the phylloxera
to spread unDoticed is that there were once
many years ago at the university grounds
few vines on which the pest appeared for
short time. They do not mention the
thousands of acres of infected vines scat
tered all over the State--the free circula-
ton of boxes, undisinfected cuttings, etc.,
between the infected districts and the un-
infected. If l might judge from what is
said in st. Helena too close investigation
into the money-making transactions of
some people concerning the transport and
sale of cuttings might prove unpleasant.
IF it had not been for the university
telling the truth about the situation the
phylloxera might have existed undis-
turbed for four years more. l haven't the
slightest doubt that the chief executive
officer of the commission does not relish
the fact that the university found phyl-
loxera within 200 yards of his own vine
yard and knows that it existed there un-
disturbed for four years. Were he called
on to explain how 1t happened that he did
not discover it till after outsiders did
people might wonder if the rest of the
S221 900 that the commission spent was as
we'll expended as the salary of the chief
executive officerp