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Government Regulation and the Rise of the California Fruit Industry: The Entrepreneurial Attack on Fruit Pests, 1880–1920

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Howard Seftel
Howard Seftel
Affiliation:
Howard Seftel is a doctoral candidate atthe University of California, Berkeley.
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Abstract

Sensing the opportunity to reap great profits by selling fruit to hungry urban consumers back East, nineteenth-century entrepreneurs flocked to California to establish commercial orchards and citrus groves. Invasions of fruit pests, however, threatened years of investment and patient cultivation, and made the public wary of the uneven quality of California fruit. In this article, Mr. Seftel describes how fruit growers organized and called on government to check the menace. Between 1880 and 1920, orchard owners created an elaborate regulatory network, linking local, state, federal, and academic institutions with their enterprise. These fruit-growing capitalists came to believe that only compulsory compliance with government-enforced pest control regulations could ensure their success. During these four decades, the growing horticultural bureaucracy helped transform California fruit growing from an entrepreneurial venture of uncertain promise into the state's second largest industry.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1985 , pp. 369 - 402
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1985

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References

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4 Both Mansel Blackford and Albert Meyer neglect the role of pest control as a key impetus toward fruit-grower organization, and they underestimate the emphasis fruit growers placed on it, particularly in the industry's early years. Meyer says that after 1880, “marketing and distribution problems became the primary worry of California orange growers.” Pest control, he contends, was “less pressing” an issue. Blackford also maintains that “the establishment of national marketing arrangements” was the fruit growers' “most pressing” need. Meyer, “Fruit Growers Exchange,” 35; Blackford, Politics of Business, 13; Nash, State Government, 231.

5 For discussions of the origin and development of government regulation, see Morton Keller, “The Pluralist State: American Economic Regulation in Comparative Perspective, 1900–1930,” Samuel P. Hays, “Political Choice in Regulatory Administration,” and Berk, Gerald P., “Approaches to the History of Regulation,” all in Regulation in Perspective, ed. McCraw, Thomas K. (Cambridge, Mass., 1981)Google Scholar; Abrams, Richard M., “Business and Government.” in Encyclopedia of American Political History, ed. Greene, Jack P. (New York, 1984), 1:126–46.Google Scholar

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12 California Fruit Growers, Report (1883), 30; California State Horticultural Commission, First Report, 45; Buhach Producing and Manufacturing Company, “Buhach,” The Great California Insecticide (San Francisco, 1880)Google Scholar; Maskew, Quarantine Regulations, 6–7; Wickson, Rural California, 171; Cumberland, Cooperative Marketing, 50. Widespread ignorance of fruit pests particularly frustrated Cooke and his early followers. “Enclosed find a ‘something’ of which there are several attached to one of my Wilson Orange trees,” wrote one typically perplexed grower to a horticultural magazine. After examining the sample, the editors could offer no help in identifying it. California Horticulturist and Floral Magazine 1 (March 1871): 132; Southern California Horticulturist 1 (June 1878): 292.

13 Maskew, Quarantine Regulations, 7–21; Nash, State Government, 143–44.

14 California Fruit Growers, Report (Nov. 1889), 391.

15 Cooke, Matthew, A Treatise on the Insects Injurious to Fruits and Fruit Trees of the State of California and Remedies for Their Extermination (Sacramento, 1881)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; California State Horticultural Commission, First Report, 10; Maskew, Quarantine Regulations, 28.

16 Ex parte John Cox, 63 California Reports 21; Pacific Rural Press 27 (5 Jan. 1884): 1; Maskew, Quarantine Regulations, 35.

17 California Fruit Growers, Report (1884), 22; Report (1885), 19; Maskew, Quarantine Regulations, 35, 43.

18 As late as 1916, horticultural officials were still bemoaning the actions of individual fruit growers who persisted in being “unmindful of the interests of the industry as a whole.” Quoted in Blackford, Politics of Business, 28.

19 California Fruit Growers, Report (1881), 3–7; Report (1882), 32–34; Report (Nov. 1888), 24, 146.

20 California Fruit Growers, Report (1882), 3, 13, 24, 63; Report (1892), 142; California State Horticultural Commission, First Report, 15; California Fruit Grower 5 (14 Dec. 1889): 5; California Fruit Grower 10 (27 Feb. 1892): 131; Pacific Rural Press 24 (15 July 1882): 40; Maskew, Quarantine Regulations, 33.

21 C1alifornia Fruit Growers, Report (1882), 65; Report (1885), 9; California State Horticultural Commission, First Report, 14. It is ironic that Cooke became a victim of his own organizing skill. By the time of his death in 1890, fruit growers had no need of a fruit box manufacturer to supervise their pest-control efforts. Cooke was quickly forgotten, and a half-hearted subscription drive to raise a memorial to him found the fruit growers reluctant to dip into their own pockets. California Fruit Growers, Report (Nov. 1890), 364; Report (1892), 126.

22 California Fruit Growers, Report (1883), 30; Report (April 1889), 18.

23 California State Board of Horticulture, Annual Report (1891), 59Google Scholar; Annual Report (1892), 36Google Scholar; California Fruit Growers, Report (1892), 166Google Scholar; Wickson, E. J., The California Fruits and How to Grow Them (San Francisco, 1889), 531Google Scholar; Tufts, et al., “Rich Pattern,” 158; Nash, , State Government, 146Google Scholar; Cumberland, Cooperative Marketing, 42; Arnold, Matthew, Civilization in the United States: First and Last Impressions of America [1888], in The Nationalizing of American Life, 1877–1900, ed. Ginger, Ray (New York, 1965), 116Google Scholar. Blackford believes that overproduction was behind the fruit growers’ marketing problems. Not merely too much fruit, however, but lack of coordination in production, distribution, and consumption, and the unsteady quality of California fruit created marketing difficulties for the horticulturists. Blackford, , Politics of Business, 13–21Google Scholar.

24 California Fruit Growers, Report (1885), 13, 53; Maskew, Quarantine Regulations, 48.

25 Florida Department of Agriculture, Citrus Industry of Florida (Tallahassee, 1947), 6Google Scholar; McKay and Stevens, Citrus-Fruit Marketing Agency, 6.

26 United States Department of Agriculture, Report of the Commissioner, 1888 (Washington, D.C., 1889), 89–90Google Scholar; United States Department of Agriculture, First Report of the Secretary of Agriculture (Washington, D.C., 1889), 334–36Google Scholar; Pacific Rural Press 33 (21 May 1887): 1; Pacific Rural Press 38 (16 Nov. 1889): 1; Howard, L. O., A History of Applied Entomology (Washington, D.C., 1930), 98–99Google Scholar; Erdman, H. E., The California Fruit Growers Exchange (New York, 1933), 8Google Scholar; California Fruit Growers, Report (March 1890), 53; Smith, et al., “Protecting Plants,” 250; Cleland and Hardy, March of Industry, 102–3.

27 The figures, in millions of boxes for the years 1886 to 1900, with Florida numbers cited first: 1886: 1.26–.840; 1887: 1.45–.957; 1888: 1.95–1.06; 1889: 2.15–1.33; 1890: 2.45–1.54; 1891: 2.71–1.69; 1892: 3.45–2.25; 1893: 5.05–2.23; 1894: 2.80–1.90; 1895: 147–2.87; 1896: .218–2.79; 1897: .358–5.75; 1898: .252–3.93; 1899: .274–6.76; 1900: .352–9.15. In 1920, Florida shipped 8.7 million boxes of oranges, while California exported more than 23 million boxes. Florida Department of Agriculture, Citrus Industry of Florida, 11–13; Harcourt, Helen [Helen Garnie Warner], Florida Fruits and How to Raise Them (Louisville, Ky., 1886), 98–127Google Scholar; Cumberland, Cooperative Marketing, 23.

28 California Fruit Grower 6 (17 May 1890): 3; California Fruit Grower 9 (18 July 1891): 31.

29 California Fruit Growers, Report (1885), 4; Report (1886), 237; Report (Nov. 1889), 392; E. A. Rogers v. the Board of Supervisors of Sonoma County, in California State Board of Horticulture, Horticultural Statutes of California (Sacramento, 1901), 16–20Google Scholar; Maskew, Quarantine Regulations, 49–59.

30 Ex parte Benjamin Hodges, 87 California Reports 162; California Fruit Grower 3 (26 Jan. 1889): 6; Nash, State Government, 141–42.

31 Scheiber, Harry N., “Public Rights and the Rule of Law in American Legal History,” California Law Review 72 (March 1984): 217–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McCurdy, Charles W. and Scheiber, Harry N., “Eminent Domain and Western Agriculture, 1849–1900,” Agricultural History 49 (Jan. 1975): 112–30Google Scholar; Scheiber, Harry N., “Property Law, Expropriation, and Resource Allocation by Government: The United States, 1789–1910,” Journal of Economic History 33 (March 1973): 232–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; California Fruit Growers, Report (1914), 298. The irrigation cases, cited in Adams, Irrigation Districts in California, are Turlock Irrigation District v. Williams, 76 California Reports 360; Central Irrigation District v. De Lappe, 79 California Reports 351; Crall v. Poso Irrigation District, 87 California Reports 140; and In re Madera Irrigation District, 92 California Reports 296. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Wright Act in Fallbrook Irrigation District v. Bradley, 164 U.S. 112.

32 Cited in Horticultural Statutes (1901), 20–26. Judge McKinley relied heavily on the California Supreme Court's well-known 1856 decision, Conger v. Weaver, 6 California Reports 548. The court there directed every judge to “know the history and leading traits which enter into the history of the country where he presides.”

33 County of Los Angeles v. Spencer, 126 California Reports 670; County of Riverside v. Butcher, 133 California Reports 324; Horticultural Statutes (1901), 27, 31. The fruit growers, however, did not have judicial carte blanche. In Tehama County Superior Court in 1901, a judge threw out a fruit-grower suit to eradicate certain pests, and called state horticultural legislation “crude and unsatisfactory.” The law, he noted, permitted the destruction of pests, but nowhere permitted the destruction of the trees or plants which harbored them. See Oregon Nursery Company v. Coats and Sampson, in Horticultural Statutes (1901), 40–53.

34 California Fruit Growers, Report (1882), 25.

35 California State Board of Horticulture, Eighth Biennial Report, (1901–1902), 27–38; California Fruit Growers, Report (April 1908), 49, 152; California Fruit Grower 9 (1 Aug. 1891): 69; Howard, Applied Entomology, 154–55. The American consul in Hamburg warned California fruit growers that they could not hope to use European markets as an outlet for unhealthy fruit: “The idea that we can make a dumping ground of Europe for what we cannot dispose of elsewhere must be abandoned. Our products … are finding too unequal a battle in foreign markets at present for us to dispense with the greatest caution and vigilance as to what we send abroad.” In fact, at the turn of the century, several kinds of California fruit were barred from Europe because of their suspect quality. [California Commission, International Horticultural Exposition, Hamburg], Report and Recommendations by the Commission That Represented California at the International Horticultural Exposition (n.p., 1897); Howard, Applied Entomology, 121–22, 136.

36 True, Alfred C., A History of Agricultural Experimentation and Research in the United States, 1607–1925 (Washington, D.C., 1937), 70–71Google Scholar; California Fruit Growers, Report (1883), 74–78; Report (1884), 62–63; Report (1887), 483; Bland, H. M., Entomological Excursions: A Practical Study of Fruit Pests Specially Adapted for School Work (San Jose, 1891), 5, 22Google Scholar; University of California, Agricultural Experiment Station, “Entomology in the School of Agriculture,” Bulletin no. 16 (Sept. 1884); California Fruit Grower 3 (9 March 1889): 4; Smith, et al., “Protecting Plants,” 246–65.

37 University of California, College of Agriculture, Report of the Work of the Agricultural Experiment Stations of the University of California for the year 1892–3 and part of 1894 (Sacramento, 1894), 21Google Scholar; United States Department of Agriculture, Publications of the Office of Experiment Stations, 1888–1899 and Publications of the Agricultural Experiment Stations of the United States, 1875–1899 (Washington, D.C., n.d.)Google Scholar; Smith, et al., “Protecting Plants, “268–72. Stanford University established a Department of Horticulture in 1892, and that same year sponsored a series of entomological lectures by J. H. Comstock, Riley's predecessor at the U.S. Bureau of Entomology. California Fruit Grower 10 (2 Jan. 1892): 3; California Fruit Grower 10 (19 March 1892): 179.

38 University of California, Agricultural Experiment Station, “Orchard Fumigation.” Bulletin no. 122 (Jan. 1899); Pacific Rural Press 36 (25 Aug. 1888): 145.

39 University of California, Agricultural Experiment Station, “Root Knots on Fruit Trees and Vines: A New Nozzle Tester,” Bulletin no. 99 (Dec. 1892)Google Scholar; “The Uses of Gases Against Scale Insects,” Bulletin no. 71 (1887); California State Commission of Horticulture, Horticultural Statutes and County Ordinances of California (Sacramento, 1905), 15Google Scholar; Howard, Applied Entomology, 63; Smith, et al., “Protecting Plants,” 277; University of California, Report of the Work of Agricultural Experiment Stations, 435; California Fruit Growers, Report (Dec. 1902), 258–60. Five other states also began conducting rudimentary entomological investigations at their universities between 1875 and 1885-New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. None had a significant fruit industry. California's principal rival, Florida, conducted no systematic entomological research, however, reflecting the fact that it produced no commercial deciduous crops and lacked pest menaces comparable to the ground squirrel or cottony cushion scale. The research findings of the federal Department of Agriculture and its Bureau of Entomology were the major source of pest-control information for Florida citrus growers. Florida's unconcern with pest-control regulation is further illustrated by its lack of haste in enacting an agricultural insecticide law, which required truthful labeling of insecticides, until 1937-thirty-six years after California set standards for Paris Green. True, History of Agricultural Experimentation, 67–118; Harcourt, Florida Fruits, 100; Florida Department of Agriculture, Citrus Industry of Florida, 191.

40 California Fruit Growers, Report (1901), 95–97.

41 California Fruit Growers, Report (1910), 14.

42 California Fruit Growers, Report (1894), 179, 184; California Fruit Grower 10 (9 Jan. 1892): 19. The U.S. Department of Agriculture passedon much pest-control information through government publications. See, for example, United States Department of Agriculture, “Spraying Plants for Insect Pests and Fungus Diseases,” Farmers' Bulletin no. 7 (1892), and “Important Insecticides: Directions for Their Preparation and Use,” Farmers' Bulletin no. 19 (1897). When several of Koebele's shipments of the vedalia from Australia were ruined by delays at customs, the Secretary of the Treasury issued a special order expediting their entry. United States Department of Agriculture, Report of the Commissioner (1888), 91.

43 United States Entomological Commission, First Annual Report for the Year 1877 (Washington, D.C., 1878)Google Scholar; Weber, Gustavus, The Bureau of Entomology: Its History, Activities and Organization (Washington, D.C., 1930)Google Scholar; Weber, Plant Quarantine and Control Administration, 1–12; California Fruit Growers, Report (Dec. 1911), 139; Report (1915), 13; California Fruit Grower 10 (23 Jan. 1892); 49; [California] State Commissioner of Horticulture, Horticultural Statutes (1917), 118. At their first convention in 1911, California nurserymen, unlike their national association, supported passage of the National Quarantine Act. The California nurserymen believed that the horticultural and nursery interests “after all are mutual.” California Association of Nurserymen, Transactions and Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting (1911), 41–45, 83; Transactions and Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting (1912), 37.

44 California Fruit Growers, Report (Dec. 1903), 202; Report (1904), 323; Report (1905), 118–22; Report (April 1908), 141, 150; Report (1909), 46–52; Nash, State Government, 232; University of California, Agricultural Experiment Station, “Pacific Coast Entomological Conference and Special Short Course in Horticulture,” Circular no. 42 (April 1909).

45 California Fruit Growers, Report (June 1912), 267; Report (Dec. 1911), 8. Besides securing new federal and state legislation extending and rationalizing pest-control regulation, the horticulturists also strengthened their informal arrangements with the railroads. One official related how the Southern Pacific, “being aware of the danger of introducing pests into the State,” refused to bring in a shipment of infested Mexican oranges. “We have always found railroad companies ready and willing to assist us in enforcing our quarantine laws,” he declared. No longer did the railroads ignore pest-control regulations, as they had when they carried untreated fruit boxes in the 1880s. California Fruit Growers, Report (Dec. 1903), 11.

46 California State Commissioner of Horticulture, Monthly Bulletin 8 (1919): 552–55Google Scholar; Nash, State Government, 240; California Fruit Growers, Report (May 1919), 329. Intensified entomological research made the fruit growers more aware than ever of the threat uncontrolled pests posed to their industry. By 1917, orange growers alone had to take precautions against sixty-one different kinds of citrus pests. Cumberland, Cooperative Marketing, 30.

47 Cleland and Hardy, March of Industry, 264, 268.