356 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



rejected at the time of inspection at the point of entry, for, contrary 

 to the general opinion of consignors there is more real pleasure to the 

 members of the quarantine service in passing a shipment of plants as 

 clean than in rejecting one by reason of infestation of insect pests and 

 plant diseases. Many means have been employed to this end, yet along 

 the line of preparation for the great event perhaps our happiest and 

 most fortunate thought was that of cultivating the acquaintance and 

 enlisting the interest and cooperation of the resident foreign consuls. 

 This new departure brought forth results a hundredfold greater than 

 our expectations and has established a better understanding of the 

 nature and nece^ssity of our work — not alone as concerns the Exposi- 

 tion but in all of its commercial phases — and has enabled us to acquire 

 acquaintances and make friendships destined to prove mutually and 

 permanently advantageous to applied horticulture in many lands. 

 Fortunately for us quarantine officers, and more fortunately for the 

 crop producers of California and the United States in general, all these 

 our earlier ardent desires, hopes, plans and preparations for protecting 

 the State and satisfying the foreign exhibitors, were consummated at 

 a single stroke by the passage of the United States Plant Quarantine 

 Act and the creation of the Federal Horticultural Board. By this act 

 the far reaching powerful arm of the Federal government encircled 

 the entire situation — its jurisdiction to so do beyond question. The 

 admirable regulations issued by this board and my investiture with the 

 authority to carry out these Federal regulations removed from my mind 

 all doubts of the ultimate outcome, and left for me but one simple 

 factor to contribute to the sum total of success — that of diligent atten- 

 tion to details. Thus was the foundation laid for controlling the 

 health and cleanliness of the horticultural material offered for exhibi- 

 tion at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. 



During October, 1913, consignments of foreign plant material for 

 exhibition purposes commenced to arrive and the work of inspecting the 

 same was organized. From that date up to the time of this writing, 

 while the imports have fluctuated in volume, the arrival of material 

 has been continuous. The amount and variety of material received 

 are barred from record in the scope of such an article as this, simply 

 by reason of their magnitude. Suffice it to say that every article of 

 plant products received from any source outside our State was inspected 

 before release and delivery to ultimate consignee, and a complete record 

 of the nature, amount, origin, condition and disposition of each ship- 

 ment is on file in the quarantine office. This inspection extended not 

 only to living plants and all fresh fruits, but to dry material used for 

 demonstration and decorative purposes, even to the seeds of weeds and 

 grasses. As an instance of how perfect was our control of the material 

 and how complete we tried to make this protective inspection, the dry 

 trunks of the cocoanut palms used in reproducing a Samoan village 

 on the "Zone" were thoroughly searched for the possible presence of 

 the terrible Polynesian rats that make their homes in such trees in the 

 South Sea Islands. The remarkable fund of information — concerning 

 the connection of pests and host plants — stored at the State quarantine 

 office, either in its files or in the experience of the members of the 

 service, greatly facilitated this inspection work and the effect of long 

 practice added to its thoroughness; for it is true that at some period 



