April, '21] beattie: operation of quarantine 37 201 



THE OPERATION OF QUARANTINE No. 37 



By R. Kent Beattie, Pathologist in Charge Foreign Plant Quarantines, 

 Federal Horticultural Board, Washington, D. C. 



Quarantine 37 is the general nurser}^ stock quarantine which, as 

 supplemented by various special quarantines, now regulates the move- 

 ment of plants and plant products into the United States. It became 

 effective June 1, 1919. 



Soon after this quarantine became effective the Federal Horticultural 

 Board organized the Office of Foreign Plant Quarantines to handle the 

 work connected with the operation of this and other foreign quarantines. 



Plants and plant products enter the United States under the provisions 

 either of Regulations 2, 3, or 14 of Quarantine 37. Regulation 2 permits 

 the entr}^ without restriction of field, vegetable and flower seeds and 

 certain plant material imported for medicinal, food or manufacturing 

 purposes. 



Regulation 3 authorizes the entry under permit of certain bulbs, fruit 

 and rose stocks, nuts, and seeds. The procedure under this regulation 

 is in the main the same as that which previously obtained under the old 

 nurser}' stock regulations. A permit, foreign inspection and certifica- 

 tion, proper marking, and notices. of shipment and arrival are required. 

 With the exception of the bulbs the inspection is conducted as formerly 

 by vState inspectors acting as collaborators of the Federal Horticultural 

 Board. The bringing under regulation of the great quantity of lily, lily 

 of the valley, narcissus, hyacinth, tulip and crocus bulbs which annually 

 enter the United States, presented a problem in inspection which 

 the State inspectors were frequently not prepared to meet. Their 

 funds had been secured and their forces organized on the basis of the 

 inspection of fruit trees, ornamentals and their stocks. Fortunately 

 bulbs are easily inspected at port of arrival. They require no machinery 

 to repack. They are less likely to convey pests and pests are more 

 easily detected upon them. In the case of those bulbs which enter 

 the United States at the nine ports of arrival where the Federal Horti- 

 cultural Board now maintains an inspection force, provision has, there- 

 fore, been made for the completion of their inspection and their release 

 at the port of arrival. 



Regulation 14 



Regulation 14 provides for the importation in limited quantities and 

 under special safeguards of nurser}^ stock and other plants and seeds not 

 covered in Regulations 2 and 3 for the purj^ose of keeping the country 

 supplied with new varieties and necessar\^ propagating stock. Although 

 the plants imported under Regulation 14 amount to about one per cent, 

 only of those imi)orted under Regulation 3, they represent a far greater 



