June, '09] JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 249 



Nursery Inspection 



There are at present fifty-two nurseries in the state from which 

 plants and trees of various descriptions are being sold annually. 

 While this is a rather small number of nurseries, yet there are in- 

 eluded some of the largest nursery firms in the countrj-. The output 

 from the nurseries of Maryland aggregates approximately 35,000,000 

 trees and plants annually. As prescribed by law, the inspection of 

 the nurseries is conducted conjointly by the State Entomologist, State 

 Pathologist and their respective assistants. 



The law prescribes two inspections annually, but it is only to the 

 principal one of these- that I will refer in these remarks, namely, the 

 inspection of the nurseries conducted in late summer and early fall. 

 This inspection is not commenced until after August 20th, as in our 

 opinion a certificate issued on an inspection made before this date in 

 this latitude would be of little value, since in the case' of San Jose 

 scale, for instance, there would yet be time for two or three broods 

 of the insect and consequent dissemination of the pest before the 

 cold weather of fall. The inspection therefore is conducted as late 

 as possible in order to be completed in time for fall trade. It can 

 be stated that the inspection in this state is conducted as thoroughly 

 as circumstances and funds will permit. It is obviously impossible 

 for the inspectors to examine every salable tree in a nursery, espe- 

 cially in nurseries of the size indicated above. It only remains for 

 the inspectors to go through the blocks as thoroughly as possible, sat- 

 isfying themselves as to the condition of the trees. We usually 

 arrange to go through the blocks in a direction at right angles to 

 the rows with an average distance of twenty to thirty feet between 

 inspectors. Thus examining trees closely from the ground up in 

 each row at this distance apart, the inspectors will invariably detect 

 the presence of any injurious pest. In our experience we have not 

 as yet had develop later a single case of infestation by an injurious 

 pest which we had not located during the inspection. 



Upon detecting the presence in a block of trees of any injurious 

 pest likely to be dessiminated, we at once closely inspect surrounding 

 stock and blocks. The trees found infested are immediately destroyed 

 and no trees are allowed to be sold from blocks in which infested trees 

 were found until after a hand inspection of all trees is made. As a 

 further precaution, all trees sold from the nurseries in Maryland are 

 required to be carefully fumigated with hydrocyanic acid gas. Thus 

 we believe that the inspection of nurseries in this state is conducted 

 on as high a plane as is practicable and that such inspection affords 



