April, '13] MORRILL: COOPERATION BETWEEN STATE INSPECTORS 263 



and with its population of more than ordinary cosmopohtan origin, 

 receives nursery stock and other plant supplies from nearly every 

 state in the country. The figures presented in the introduction of 

 this paper for the first season's operation of the inspection law indicate 

 that where the shippers are not fully aware that inspection at destina- 

 tion is practiced, nearly nine shipments out of 100 are actually infested 

 in some degree by injurious 'insects; moreover these infested shipments 

 are each accompanied by a certificate declaring that the shippers 

 stock has been duly inspected within a year and found free from inju- 

 rious insects. 



The writer has several times been moved to attempt to preserve the 

 dignity of the plant inspection profession by explaining that some 

 insects, although admittedly injurious, are so widely distributed in 

 some sections of the country that further attempts to prevent their 

 spread by means of nursery stock in such sections are of comparatively 

 little value. Let us, however, consider the Eastern peach tree borer. 

 Are there not even in the most generally infested Eastern states, fruit- 

 growing sections, or sections which are yet undeveloped, where this 

 pest does not exist? And is it not the duty of nursery insjiectors to 

 give consideration to the protection of such sections. 



Dr. 0. C. Bartlett, assistant state entomologist of Arizona, formerly 

 deputy inspector in Massachusetts, informs me that in the latter state 

 there are sections which need protection against the common peach 

 tree borer. Doubtless this is true also of practically every state in 

 the East. In the far West, however, the Eastern peach tree borer 

 is very limited in its distribution and in Arizona and neighboring states 

 there is just as much reason to exclude this pest as the San Jose scale. 



Shipments of peaches, plum and apricot trees infested to a greater 

 or less degree by the Eastern peach tree borer have been received in 

 Arizona during the past three years from at least five states located 

 north and east of us. In one case a shipment of about 3,000 peach 

 trees which appeared to be the infested discard of a nursery was re- 

 ceived at Phoenix. In this case a certificate supposed to show that 

 the trees had been free from injurious insects when inspected in the 

 nursery, accompanied the shipment of trees which were not only 

 infested, but for the most part virtually killed by insect pests. Trees 

 killed by San Jose scale could not have been of less value than these 

 girdled peach trees. When notified that the shipment either must 

 be burned or must be reshipped, the nurserymen wired that they 

 expected their ''certificate to protect them." Needless to say, it did 

 not. Is it not important that state inspectors, for the sake of their 

 reputations, and honest nurserymen, for the sake of their business, 

 be protected against such an abuse of official inspection certificates? 



