REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 77 



Work of this same character has been carried on at a number of 

 points in the West by cooperation with the State authorities, with 

 the Forest Service of this department, and with private owners, and 

 it has been demonstrated again and again not only that much of 

 the loss of insect-killed timber in past years might have been 

 prevented without any extra expenditure of funds, but also that 

 with care and foresight in the future the work of the destructive 

 bark beetles over nearly all of our territory can be economically 

 controlled. 



INSPECTION WORK. 



I called attention in my last two annual reports to the urgent 

 need of the passage by Congress of a plant quarantine and inspec- 

 tion law, showing as forcibly as possible that the United States 

 has been the only great power without a law to protect it from 

 insect pests and plant diseases from other countries with which it 

 has commercial relations. Down to the close of the past fiscal year, 

 although legislation was pending in Congress, no action had been 

 taken, and with a view to securing as perfect inspection as possible 

 in the countries of origin of nursery stock especially, which was 

 bound to be imported in large quantities the coming autumn into this 

 country from portions of Europe, the chief of the bureau was sent 

 abroad to confer with the nurserymen and the inspection officials of 

 those countries. Toward the close of the session of Congress within 

 the present fiscal year, an inspection and quarantine bill was passed by 

 Congress and a Federal Horticultural Board was established, com- 

 posed of members of the Bureau of Entomology, of the Bureau of 

 Plant Industry, and of the Forest Service. Kegulations have been 

 drawn up by this board covering the importation of products likely 

 to carry injurious insects and disease, and certain quarantines against 

 certain classes of products have been announced. This is a great 

 step in advance, and it is hoped and expected that the operations 

 of the act will serve as a marked protection against the introduction 

 of injurious species into this country in the future. Wien we con- 

 sider that more than one-half of the pests of this kind of first-class 

 importance existing in this country have been in past years intro- 

 duced in this way and unwittingly established in our midst, with 

 the resultant damage of millions of dollars' Avorth of property, the 

 country can at last congratulate itself upon the fact that it is in 

 position to prevent very great prospective waste. 



Inasmuch as special mention was made in a previous report of the 

 destruction by experts of this bureau, after inspection, of a large 

 shipment of ornamental flowering cheriy trees sent as a gift from 

 the city of Tokyo to the wife of the President, it is a pleasure to 

 announce that among the importations of the past year which have 



