April, '21] marlatt: federal horticultural board work 171 



whether the pink bolhvorm was really doing the damage charged to it. 

 As a result of minute examinations this commission determined that 

 the loss from the pink bollworm for 1920 was fifty per cent, of the crop. 

 Their report to the Governor made a tremendous impression upon Texas 

 and is going to help the whole situation. 



The other large element of Board work is the control of plant and 

 seed importations. Your Chairman, Mr Sanders, has helped me out 

 very considerably in his discussion of this subject. This service is 

 under the direction of Mr. Beattie, who will tell you more about it 

 later. There are in the country large numbers of very estimable 

 people, many of them of great wealth, who are interested in orchids 

 and roses, and who are members of local amateur societies, garden 

 societies, flower societies of all kinds, who have been seized upon by the 

 small bunch of aggrieved importers and have had their souls filled with 

 distrust of the Federal Horticultural Board and its works in relation to 

 quarantine 37. 



An informing statement on quarantine 37 has been prepared and will 

 be issued shortly to make available accurate information relative to this 

 quarantine. 



In spite of assertions in recent propaganda, America will not become 

 a desert, not with some 15,000,000 so-called " forbidden plants" author- 

 ized entry in eighteen months ! The fact is that we authorized the entry 

 of about four times as many as could be found abroad to purchase! 

 You understand that this entry of foreign plants is not a violation of 

 the spirit of the quarantine. These plants cannot be sold. These 

 plants are permitted entr}^ for the sole purpose of introducing new varie- 

 ties and propagating stock and from such introductions to grow in this 

 country new stocks, — American grown — which can be sold. In other 

 words, we are developing in this country the production of the plants 

 which we formerly imported. 



This quarantine now has the general support of the commercial plant 

 growers of the country. Many men come into my office who have been 

 fighting the quarantine vigorously in the past, and after some hesitation 

 it finally develops that what they are really interested in is, if the quaran- 

 tine is going to stick, whether we have got backbone enough to stand up 

 for it ! They go away satisfied ! 



Chiarman Sanders: Your Chairman feels that he would have been 

 sadly remiss if he had restricted Mr. Marlatt's talk to the fifteen minutes 

 that was stated on the program, because there are only a few of us here 

 who have the opportunity to frequently get in touch with the Federal 

 Board and to be in attendance at the hearings and meetings, and I feel 



