204 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



the fact at once to the Department at Augusta and the matter 

 will be attended to without delay. 



Do not buy cheap stock, it is dear at any price; the best is 

 none too good for ]\Iaine. 



There has been altogether too much of such stock set in the 

 past and 90% of it died before it reached a bearing age. 



If we are going to redeem ourselves as a fruit producing state 

 we must begin at once to use the same business-like methods as 

 regards our orchards as the Aroostook farmer has used regard- 

 ing the raising of potatoes. Then and not till then will we see 

 our Maine apple stand on a par with the Washington and 

 Oregon fruit that has been so much in evidence during the past 

 winter in our restaurants, fruit stalls and even the corner 

 groceries. 



Owing to the lack of efficient international laws regulating the 

 sending of foreign nursery stock to this country we are very 

 seriously handicapped as far as nursery protection is concerned. 



It is a well known fact that the brown-tail moth was intro- 

 duced into Massachusetts on some rose bushes imported from 

 Holland. It is not known that this insect has infested the state 

 of New York but it will not long remain free unless very strin- 

 gent laws are enforced. 



On January 9 of this year a letter was received from the 

 Chief of the Bureau of Inspection of that state saying that a 

 box of nursery stock received from France contained 75 winter 

 nests of the brown-tail moth, all of which contained living 

 caterpillars. On the first of February another communication 

 was received stating that for the month of January 1909, i,cxdo 

 boxes had been received from the same locality and what had 

 been examined had been found to contain 1,800 nests of the 

 brown-tail and that the caterpillars in each nest were alive. 

 What a dire calamity would have befallen the state had these 

 been overlooked and allowed to spread. 



As far as we know our State is free from the San Jose scale 

 but it may appear at any time in York or Cumberland counties ; 

 possibly in other sections. 



Woolly aphis has been brought to us each year but we hope 

 to see this cut out henceforth, as we have enough of our own 

 to contend with. 



