WHOLE VOL. APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY HOWARD 13/ 



numerous conferences were held by entomologists and the Legisla- 

 tive Committee of the National Association of Nurserymen, without 

 any agreement as to suitable legislation. Finally in 1908 the promoters 

 of this legislation became thoroughly discouraged, and the project was 

 definitely abandoned in this shape, since, the San Jose scale having 

 in the meantime been carried on nursery stock into practically every 

 State in the Union, the original reason for the predominating inter- 

 state features of the bill had been largely eliminated. I remember 

 well the hearings before the Committee on Agriculture of the House 

 in the winter of 1908- 1909 and my complete discouragement as to 

 the possibility of securing the needed legislation. 



Fortunately, there was a man who did not allow himself to be dis- 

 couraged, and that was Dr. C. L. Marlatt, later Chairman of the Fed- 

 eral Horticultural Board and now also Chief of the Bureau of 

 Entomology. 



As it happened, the fruit stock that came in from Europe, particu- 

 larly from France, in 1908 and 1909 carried very many over-winter- 

 ing nests of the brown-tail moth and many egg-masses of the gipsy 

 moth. These sendings were consigned in very many cases to regions 

 of the United States that had not yet been reached by either of these 

 pests. We were all very greatly alarmed about the matter. At that 

 time, as already stated, many of the States had passed quarantine and 

 inspection laws, and these shipments were held up at many places, 

 and the findings were reported by State inspectors. Doctor Marlatt 

 became intensely interested, and began in 1909 vigorously to prose- 

 cute once more the question of national legislation. He drafted a 

 new bill for Congress on a plan that diiTered greatly from the earlier 

 ones, since it related solely to the safeguarding of plant importations 

 and to the control of important new pests having limited foothold 

 in the United States, abandoning altogether the question of Federal 

 control of interstate traffic in nursery stock that had lieen carried in 

 the earlier bills. This bill, with the authority of Secretary Wilson, 

 was submitted by Doctor Marlatt to the House Committee on Agricul- 

 ture. It was introduced by Mr. Scott, the Chairman of that com- 

 mittee, on January 29, 1909, and promptly passed the House. Learn- 

 ing of this, the Legislative Committee of the National Association of 

 Nurserymen came to Washington and asked permission to study the 

 bill and possibly to suggest amendments in minor features. The bill 

 was then withdrawn for this purpose, with Mr. Scott's full consent. 

 Having secured this withdrawal of the bill, the nurserymen opposed 

 any legislation, and during the three and a half years following were 

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