April, '21] SANDERS: horticultur.\l inspection 161 



THE TREND OF HORTICULTURAL INSPECTION 



By J. G. Sanders, State Capitol, Harrishurg, Pa. 



Horticultural inspection is essentially and perforce an American 

 institution. It is a child of necessity — that need of a guardianship 

 thrown around our agriculture and horticulture to protect them from the 

 introduction and establishment of new and potential pests from foreign 

 lands; likewise this guardianship is exercised to prevent, if possible, 

 undue and rapid spread of pests already established within our borders, 

 or those even more localized. 



The histors" of our earliest endeavors along the lines of horticultural 

 inspection and quarantines as reviewed at this period, reveals some ad- 

 mittedly unwise and drastic actions, which have hampered certain 

 horticultural interests, and doubtless have caused, in the aggregate, 

 considerable actual loss. I believe we are safe in our assurance, that 

 zealous efforts to perform duty, sometimes perhaps in the absence of 

 the best of training and experience, alone have caused unnecessary in- 

 convenience and losses to horticulture. 



Reports have been circulated that inspectors have condemned ship- 

 ments without reasons other than to "show their authority," and to 

 appear active in their positions. If there are such inspectors, they are 

 not worthy of the consideration of decent men and scientific horti- 

 cultural officers, and as such can not be too strongly condemned. The 

 horticultural inspector who can not see the larger work, of which his 

 effort is but a small part, and who is so untrained and so unobserving 

 of the hosts of horticultural pests demanding constant alertness, that 

 he must use unnecessarily drastic and ruinous orders, should be classed 

 with the school examiner whose limitations of knowledge forces him to 

 the use of "catch questions" to fill a Hst of only ten examination ques- 

 tions. Their day is past. 



Great improvements are apparent everywhere in methods of inspec- 

 tion, certification, and quarantine. No longer do we frantically cut 

 down large fruit orchards on account of a few individuals of the once 

 dreaded San Jose scale. We have learned through a long series of 

 years and experimentation to cope readily with this pest through spray- 

 ing methods. This improvement in horticultural inspection is primarily 

 the outgrowth of experience based on past history, on better training, 

 better organization, and best of all, more general and hearty cooperation 

 of existing agencies and factors. 



A considerable change in feeling on the part of our nurser}mien toward 

 horticultural inspection is in evidence in these latter years, since they 

 have begun to realize what they should have realized much earlier, that 



