1920 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 39 



States had long been felt. The San Jose Scale excitement of that period was, 

 however, the leading element in bringing about the demand for a federal plant 

 law. As a result of the conference in Washington a broad plant law was draL'ted 

 which was intended to regulate both foreign importation of plants and also inter- 

 state traffic. On account of its breadth of field this proposed law aroused a good 

 deal of opposition and failed to get any real standing before Congress. It was 

 re-introduced at different sessions of Congress for a number of years hut never 

 received effective support 



In 1908 and 1909 the plant import situation became very serious on account 

 of the sudden increase of infestation of nursery stock received from Europe and 

 Japan by gipsy and brown-tail moths. This was about eight years after the original 

 attempt to get federal plant quarantine law. The failure up to that time to get 

 Congress to act had rather dispelled the enthusiasm of most of us, and the passage 

 of any satisfactory law through Congress was generally looked upon as being 

 practically impossible. The securing of legislation, giving new federal powers, 

 is always a difficult matter and especially so where such powers involve an entirely 

 new subject of legislation encroaching in any degree on the police or other powers 

 of the states. 



Tn the face of the great danger which this country was under from the 

 character of nursery stock importations of 1908-09 I secured permission from the 

 Secretary of Agriculture to draft a new plant quarantine law and to have it in- 

 troduced in Congress. That draft was the original of the present plant quarantine 

 act. It was a very difficult matter to get this legislation through Congress. The 

 bill was revised and re-introduced many times before it was finally passed in August, 

 1912, and the story of the long fight to get this legislation would be a very interest- 

 ing one if I had time to relate it. 



The Federal Plant Quarantine Act of 1912 is limited to control of entry of 

 foreign plants and plant products, and to the establishment of domestic quarantines 

 within the United States controlling interstate movement of such quarantined 

 or restricted plants or plant products. As to its foreign features, all plants or 

 plant products of whatever kind are subject to restriction. As to the domestic 

 and interstate features, not only plants and plant products may be restricted but 

 any other article which may be the means of conveying insect or disease enemies 

 of plants, a control broad enough to cover, for example, stone and other quarry 

 products, earth, or even manufactured articles. The law does not provide for 

 any general interstate control of plant traffic except in relation to specific quaran- 

 tines to prevent the spread of dangerous insects or plant diseases, and in this 

 respect is less broad than the law drafted by the original conference at Washington" 

 referred to at the outset of this discussion. 



This quarantine act has now been in force seven years. There are now in 

 force under it some fifteen foreign quarantines and seven orders restricting or 

 regulating the entry of plants and plant products and some twelve domestic quaran- 

 tines. With most of this quarantine and control action you are doubtless fairly 

 familiar. I will discuss rather briefly a few of the more important activities of 

 the Board in respect to these quarantines and restrictions on plant movement. 



Perhaps the most important activity of the Board at the moment is in relation 

 to the pink bollworm of cotton. This insect is a very important new enemy of 

 cotton which has recently obtained foothold in Mexico and also scant foothold in 

 Texas. To prevent the further entry of this insect into the United States and 

 to effect its control in the limited areas where it is now established we are now 



