The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1906-02-01

law that cannot De enforced without
discrimination or if it should be, the
apple business in our warm valleys,
like the Wenatchee, Yakima, Walla
Walla and Snake river, would be par
alyzed. The law reads as follows:
"Any person or persons who shall
bring into the state, have in their pos
session or offer for sale or distribute
or give away fruit trees, shrubs, fruit
or other material infested with any
kind of insect pest injurious to fruit,
fruit trees or plants shall be guilty of
a misdemeanor, and upon conviction
thereof shall be punished by a fine OF
not less than fifty dollars nor more
than five hundred dollars, or by i'm
prisonment in the county Jail not less
than sixty days nor more than one
year: Provided, that for each repeat
ed offense the person or persons con-
victed may be punished by fine Of
not less than two hundred dollars nor
more than eight hundred dollars, or
by Imprisonment not to exceed two
years"
pass over the faulty diction in this
bunglingly worded law with the re-
mark that some one wrote it who had
but little knowledge of what consti-
tutes good English. How many fruit
growers here could hold up their hands
and say that they never had in their
possession, never offered for sale or
distribution and never tried to give
away any fruit or other material (sic)
infested with any kind of insect pests
injurious to fruit? We are all guilty
of violating this law if it is strictly
enforced according to the letter and
as we have repeated the offense a
great many times we might lose all
our property or be kept in Jail the
remainder of our days. If it be said
it was never intended to have the law
just quoted enforced literally, then
how should it be enforced? The only
answer to this is that it should be en-
forced with discrimination. That is
just where the trouble begins
The state commissioner and the
county fruit inspectors are put In
trying position and deserve our sym
patty. They are sworn to enforce this
law and the right of discrimination is
not given to them in the law and they
exercise it without any legal right. L
am not blaming them. They have been
kind to us and have treated us better,
perhaps, than We deserve. But they
have met with trouble. Let me give
an illustrations: The apple crop has
been light the past season and the
result is that the per cent of wormy
fruit is greater than when we have
large crop. This is always the case
and always will be- We who have our
he xrCi6
have been allowed to sell our so-called
wormy apples to our neighbors up and
down the valley and on the Indian
reservation, and as result thousands
of boxes of wormy fruit have been
sold by the people of Parker Bottom
and about Zillah, and this so-called in
fected fruit has been scattered up and
down the valley from Kiona to Union
Gap and on the reservation. 1t is be-
lieved that no harm was done to any
one, for you can no more infect that
section of country with the codling
moth than you could infect small
pox hospital by sending another
patient into it who is broken out with
the small poX.
We are duly thankful for this PRIV
ilege, but there is one thing we cannot
understand, and that is this: A dep
uty fruit inspector found twelve boxes
of these wormy apples in a store at
Toppenish and condemned them and
ordered them to be destroyed. Now as
hundreds of sacks of these apples in
fected in the same way were carried
on to the reservation by Indians and
others why should these twelve boxes
found in a store be condemned? That
is conundrum, and give it up. Now,
| have not related this incident to,
in any manner, censure any one but
for the purpose of showing the diff
Guilty of irving to enforce a law with