FEDERAL HORTICULTURAL BOARD. 623 



resulted in the establishment in Mississippi and in the South of the 

 worst known enemy of cotton, and would possibly have nullified all 

 the effort which has been going on now for several years at great cost 

 to control and eradicate this pest in its present rather limited foot- 

 hold in Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico. This is only one illus- 

 tration of hundreds during the year of the interception of pests 

 threatening many of the major fruit and field crops of the Nation. 

 These interceptions have included such important pests as the corn 

 borer, citrus canker, pink bollworm, various fruit flies (including the 

 Mediterranean) , potato weevils, and many others of both known and 

 unkno\vn possibilities. A total of 397 different kinds of insect pests 

 have been thus intercepted and identified, together with 175 others 

 the specific identification of which it has not been possible to make. 

 A complete list of the insects intercepted on foreign plants and plant 

 products during 1921 is given in the annual letter of information on 

 such interceptions published for that year. 



In connection with this inspection of imported plants and plant 

 products it is very important that provision be made for cooperation 

 with the Post Office Department for the examination of parcel-post 

 packages from abroad. The postal inspectors are not trained to 

 make such inspections, and such parcels very frequently have been 

 found to contain the very pests which the department is making a 

 valiant efl'ort to exclude from this country or exterminate, and inas- 

 much as such parcels may go directly to the interior points for cus- 

 toms examination and distribution they present an exceptional 

 menace. There are some 25 border and interior points for the 

 examination of such parcel-post packages in the United States. 

 The board now has inspectors, in connection with other port duties, 

 at only 11 of these points. 



Outside of the collaborative service in California and Florida 

 referred to above, the port inspection service as now being conducted 

 covers particularly the ports of Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, 

 Philadelphia, Portland, and Seattle, and involves the inspection of 

 the ocean commerce entering these ports. 



This service is very inadequate and imdermanned at all of the 

 ports listed and long hours of duty are involved, and even then only 

 partial inspection can be made and other important ports are without 

 any protection of this sort whatsoever. 



To enable the board to adequately extend and. properly conduct 

 this service and to cooperate with the Postal Service at points where 

 no department inspectors are now stationed, the board requested an 

 increase of S100,000. This sum was looked upon as a minimum, 

 but was reduced to $60,000 on the score of economy. Protection 

 of this sort is work of a continuing nature and must be carried out 

 efficiently and adequately, and is, therefore, on a different basis 

 from work which may be postponed or materially reduced to be 

 resumed later. In other words, a single introduction such as the 

 specific example given above would cost the country hundreds of 

 millions of dollars. The likelihood of such introductions can be 

 largely eliminated if adequate inspection is made possible. 



An additional very important feature of the inspection service of 

 the board is the inspection at the quarantine house of the department 

 of plant materials imported from all quarters of the world under special 

 permits, and also the importations of hew plants and seeds made by 



