Anti-immigration groups oppose the variance. Secretary Chase said he will consider the petition and issue a ruling.

January 14,1966:

RESIST LAND BOOM LURE, SAYS GROWER Stephen Bannister, Times business writer

Farmers need to resist the temptation to sell their land at high marketprices, says a prominent Kern County fruit grower, because the future of the family farm is at stake.

"Quick profits pose a difficult temptation, and Lord knows farming can be difficult, what with all the government restrictions," said Henry Ardullo, a walnut and peach farmer from Treadway, California, and past president of the Affiliated Agricultural Network, a group representing the interests of independent growers. "But the farm is the soul of California. This state is America's breadbasket, and if we cut off the hand that feeds us in the name of easy money, what are we leaving to our children? Golf courses and country clubs are pretty, but try feeding your family with turf grass."

Ardullo's comments were made at a GOP fund-raiser at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, where he shared the dais with State Senators William Greben and Rudy Torres, and real estate developer Sheridan Krafft.

March 5,1975:

OBITUARIES

HENRY ARDULLO, COLLEGE GRIDIRON STAR AND AGRICULTURAL EXEC

Henry "Butch " Ardullo died at his ranch in Treadway, California, this past Wednesday. Renowned as a quarterback at Stanford University, where he broke several records for running and passing, Ardullo received a B.A. in business in 1930. He had been widely expected to enter professional football until an injury ended his athletic career.

Upon graduation, he joined the family enterprise, a large walnut and peach plantation begun by his father, Joseph (Giuseppe) Ardullo, an immigrant from Naples who came to California in 1883, found work as a fruit vendor in San Francisco and invested his profits in real estate in and around the Kern County community of Treadway, where he planted hundreds of fruit trees from stock acquired in England, Italy and Portugal.

Upon Joseph Ardullo s death in 1941, Henry Ardullo took over the business, Ardullo AA Fruit, which he renamed and incorporated as BestBuy Produce, and continued to purchase land, amassing large private real estate holdings in the lower central valley region. Elected as president of Affiliated Agricultural Network, a post World War II consortium of independent growers, in 1946, Ardullo represented grower interests in Washington, including a successful petition for relaxation of immigration laws to allow increased numbers of farm laborers into California. He was a member ofKiwanis, the Treadway Chamber of Commerce, and the Farm League and a contributor to the Republican party; he served as central valley chairman of United Way from 1953 to 1956.

He married Stanford classmate KatherineAnn Steth-son, daughter of a Palo Alto department store owner, in 1933. She died in 1969. A son, Henry Ardullo, Jr., died in a mountain climbing accident in Nepal, in 1960. The senior Ardullo is survived by his other son, Scott Stethson Ardullo ofTreadway, vice president ofBestBuy Produce.

The farm is the soul of California.