1G2 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



a beayj penalty. But tlie}^ do not attempt to enforce that provision in 

 Maryland, because it is unconstitutional. It also runs squarely against 

 the inter-state commerce law. It is impossible to enact a law in this or 

 any other state, under the inter-state commerce laws, that will be really 

 effectual, without first having a national law. They worked hard at that 

 during the last session. I have several drafts of bills that were sent me 

 by Prof. Taylor, and a good deal of correspondence on the subject, but 

 they could not come to any agreement at \Yashington in this matter. 

 Now, here was a question of other inspectors brought up by our own in- 

 spector — the right to insi^ect stock that came in here carrying the cer- 

 tificate of other inspectors. The question arises, would they not imme- 

 diately retaliate in other states? When we ask other states to accept our 

 stock, to accept our goods, under the certificate of our own inspector, 

 what right have we to deny them the same privilege of sending into 

 Michigan stock under the certificate of their inspector? We got around 

 that point, so far as we could, by making it the duty of our own inspector 

 to follow up this stock, if he had any suspicion, and to take it anywhere 

 he could find it. But, mind you, it cuts two w^aj^s. If the inspector has 

 an idea that stock is infested, and notifies the person to whom that stock 

 is going, the consignee, that he has suspicions of the stock, he will not 

 accept it in one case out of twenty, because, under our present law, our 

 inspector has the right to go upon his premises and condemn that stock 

 on sight and take it from his possession. 



Prof. Hedrick : Supposing'next spring I go to Grand Rapids, and deal- 

 ers were bringing in peach trees by the carload. I find a carload of peach 

 trees bearing, we will say, a certificate of inspection from a New York 

 inspector, and I find on those peach trees black aphis. I would have to 

 let the dealer, if he had a certificate, sell those trees, and I would have to 

 follow^ them up; would have to demand from that dealer a list of his cus- 

 tomers, and then go to his customers and destroy the trees, or make them 

 destroy the aphis, before I could right the wrong at all. It seems to me 

 there should be a shorter way, that I ought to have the right to do some- 

 thing with that carload of peach trees before it was sold. 



Mr. Morrill : Is that correct, can you not take that wherever you find it? 



Mr. Hedrick : No, I can enter the nursery or enter the orchard. 



Mr. Morrill: But can not take stock? 



Prof. Hedrick: No, sir. * 



Mr. Morrill: Where you know it is infested? 



Prof. Hedrick: No; that was the point I wanted to bring out. 



Mr. Slayton: That law ought to be so that you could catch it as you 

 would' a bear — anywhere. 



Mr. Graham : Then, again, there are the mail orders. There is another 

 snag that we ran against, and we never found a w^ay of getting around it. 

 We know of no w^ay in which we could handle this question of mail orders. 

 If I write a letter, for instance, to a New York nursery, and tell them to 

 send me a thousand trees, they are not doing business in this state, they 

 are not soliciting in this state, they are not selling in this state. They 

 are selling the goods at home, on their own grounds, and I do not know 

 of any power of the state to compel those people to take out a license, to 

 have their stock inspected, or prevent them from bringing their goods in. 

 I go to them and do business in their state; they do not come here and do 

 business with us, and the only protection we have against that class of 



