EXCLUDING ENEMY ALIENS WITH APPETITES DE LUXE 



1057 



which will bar undesirable human immigrants, but there 

 IS no test which we can apply to exclude the army of 

 injurious insects and plant diseases from abroad which 

 enter as stowaways on nursery stock and other plant 

 material. 



The system of inspecting the importations of foreign 

 nursery stock has proved ineffectual because the eyesight 

 of the most competent inspector is not capable of dis- 

 covering every insect or plant disease on every plant. 

 Many of them, especially fungi, are hidden under the 

 bark and are entirely invisible. It must be remembered 

 that of many of these pests we have no conception, based 

 on experience in its native land, as to its destructive 

 powers under American conditions. Fumigation has been 

 tried but it is manifestly impossible for any gas or liquid 

 to penetrate to the interior tissues of a plant where 

 fungus or borer may be hiding. The question "what shall 

 we do about it?" has been answered correctly by the 

 Federal embargo, which prohibits further importation 

 of plants from abroad except such as are specifically sanc- 

 tioned by the United States Department of Agriculture. 



The United States is the last great nation to adopt 

 measures to adequately guard against the dangers inci- 

 dent to the introduction of foreign nursery stock. We 

 have thus wasted millions of dollars annually, and there 

 remains the possibility of complete extermination of cer- 

 tain valuable economic plants. It is fitting that this action 

 by the United States Department of Agriculture is taken 

 now when we must conserve all of our National resources 

 to help pay the huge expense of war. 



There is always the possibiHty of bringing in pests 

 in cargoes of merchandise, but the action taken by the 

 Federal Horticultural Board, backed up as it undoubtedly 

 will be by adequate supervision, is certain to prevent 

 great losses in the future. An additional factor of 

 safety is the recently organized American Plant Pest 

 Committee, composed of State agricultural and forestry 

 officials, entomologists, pathologists, and others inter- 

 ested in safeguarding the crops of farm and forest. The 

 purpose of this Committee is to secure quick action for 

 the suppression or control of dangerous pests as soon as 

 they are discovered. 



CANADA TO HELP FRANCE 



BY ELLWOOD WILSON 

 f^ C. PICHE, Chief Forester of Quebec, has just 

 ^^* returned from some months' stay in France and 

 says that the continent will require a great quantity of 

 lumber, especially France and Belgium. Before the war, 

 France was importing three million cubic meters, and 

 Russia was supplying one third of this. The war has 

 so depleted the French forests that they will require at 

 least twenty years rest to be in position to furnish their 

 normal yield. The demand will be much heavier than 

 in the past owing to reconstruction needs and new indus- 

 tries, and will amount to about eight million cubic meters 

 per annum. Canada and the United States will be able 

 to supply a large part of this. 



It would be advisable to help the French in their re- 



forestation work. The Norwegian Society of Foresters 

 is going to reforest at their own expense 250 hectares. 

 It is suggested that Canadians should plant a tract on 

 say, Vimy Ridge, with Canadian trees, maples perhaps. 



The French Forest Service has suffered heavily during 

 the war both by the loss of men and the lack of new 

 men entering the schools. They are short one-third of 

 their personnel which with the addition of the forests 

 of Alsace-Lorraine, will accentuate their difficulties. They 

 are considering a modification of their organization by 

 giving more authority to inspectors. 



The School of Forestry was reopened in December, 

 1917, in the building of the Institut Agronomique, in 

 Paris, rue Claude Bernard. It has also suffered greatly 

 by the war. Now that conditions are better the school 

 is returning to Nancy. The French foresters are eager 

 to return to the beloved forests of Alsace-Lorraine. The 

 Serbs have an important group of young men at the 

 school and it is expected that many more will come from 

 Jougo-Slavia, Czecho-Slavia and Roumania. 



A letter received from a prominent Norwegian forester 

 says that there was no crop of Picea Excelsa last fall 

 and that no seed is to be had. He also says that condi- 

 tions in Russia are bad and that labor in Norway is some- 

 what infected by the virus of Bolshevism. 



A letter from a Spanish forester says that conditions 

 of unrest are disquieting and an anti-Bolshevist league 

 has been formed. 



LET TREES TELL THEIR GLORY, NOT 

 OUR SORROW 



"W70ULD not memorial groves — living, growing em- 

 ' ' blems of our sorrow and our pride — be more fitting 

 monuments to our dead in the great war than anything 

 made with hands? Would they not better carry their 

 memorial message to this generation that mourns, and 

 to unborn generations yet to be instructed and inspired? 

 This is the sentiment expressed in Country Life in call- 

 ing attention to the plans of the American Forestry 

 Association both for memorial tree planting and regis- 

 tering such plantings in a national honor roll, as well as 

 its work of helping reforest the devastated battle areas 

 of our Allies abroad. 



"What is it that clamors to be told — told now, and told 

 for all time?" Miss Grace Tabor asks in writing on the 

 subject in the magazine. "Not grief at loss, nor personal 

 sorrow, nor even yet a national mourning. These things 

 need comforting, not telling. Thus it is apparent that a 

 very definite and possible thing is proposed in memorial 

 trees — a thing quite as definite as any hitherto known form 

 of monument or memorial even though it is not consum- 

 mated by the blue print or the stone mason route. That 

 it ties up with the great reforestation work of our own 

 .American Forestry Association in France makes it of 

 deeper significance still. For these forests — millions of 

 acres of them — will likewise inevitably be memorial 

 groves to the American dead even though they were not 

 planted to this end. France will make them so for 

 France never forgets." 



