DEPARTMENT REPORTS. 187 



REPOKT OF THE STATE INSPECTOR OF NURSERIES AND 



ORCHARDS. 



To the State Board of Agriculture : 



Gentlemen : The work of nursery and orchard -inspection during the 

 past year has been mainly along three lines, yiz. : First, to insure by 

 the careful inspection of all imported stock that the seedlings and trees 

 brought in from other countries and used by the nurserymen are free 

 from dangerons insects and diseases; second, that the stock growing 

 in the nurseries does not become infested before it is sent out to the fruit 

 growers; third, by the inspection of orchards to ascertain when orchards 

 haye become infested and assist the owners to combat the difficulty. 



By arrangement with the Bureau of Entomology of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, and the Bureau of Horticulture of the New 

 York State Department of Agriculture, reports of the arriyal of all ship- 

 ments of nursei';}' stock are receiyed. During the year nearly oOQ cases were 

 Imported into Michigan, fully three-fourths of which were consigned to 

 parties either at Monroe or Detroit., and, except when they were of 

 bulbs or plants not likely to be infested, the contents of the cases were 

 carefully inspected. 



In 1009 nearly every case of pear, plum and apple seedlings contained 

 a number of the nests of the brown-tail moth, and as each nest may con- 

 tain as many as 400 larvae it was not uncommon to find as many as 

 10,000 of these insects in a single case of seedlings. 



The brown-tail moth was imported into Massachusetts, pre.sumably 

 upon rose bushes, some twenty years ago and it has now spread into 

 all of the New England states. It feeds upon fruit trees and often 

 does much harm to forest trees, especially the oaks. 



There is another European insect who.se importation it is of even 

 more importance to guard against. This is the g>'psy moth, an insect 

 which may do even more harm than the brown-tail as it feeds upon a 

 greater variety of vegetation, it being stated that the only tree, shnib 

 or herbaceous plant upon which it is not found is tobacco. 



No indication of the presence of this insect upon nursery stock has 

 ever been found in ^Michigan, but it has been discovered upon European 

 shipments in New York and Ohio. 



Owing to the remonstrances that were sent to the European nurseries, 

 upon the condition of the stock received in 1909, greater care was evi- 

 dently taken to see that the stock was free from infestation, as the num- 

 ber in 1910 was greatly reduced and most of them were small or empty 

 nests, and the shipments received in 1911 were practically free from 

 them. 



However, it is not deemed advisable to abandon the examination of 

 imported stock as even though a single nest is imported it would be 

 only a few years before it had spread all over the state and Michigan 

 might then be in the condition of Massachusetts where over one million 

 dollars is annually expended in controlling the broT\Ti-tail and gipsy 

 moths. 



