248 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 3 



agreeing with what was said by the gentlemen from Colorado. . I have 

 been studying- this problem for a good many years myself in Iowa. 



We have Crown Gall in a good many orchards. The Crown Gall 

 trees do not average in bearing qualities anywhere near the average 

 of the other trees. It is possible f®r those who are familiar with the 

 effects of this disease to go through an orchard and pick out with a 

 fair degree of certainty the Crown Gall trees. Now the important 

 question is, what are w^e going to do in controlling this disease? It 

 is quite one thing to say that I, in Iowa, for instance, will require 

 nurserymen to agree to destroy all Crown Gall trees at digging time, 

 and quite another thing to see that this rule is carried out. I have not 

 been entirely consistent in my policy in regard to this. I cannot help 

 regarding it as little more than a mere form to give a certificate and at 

 the same time require an agreement from the nurseryman that he 

 will destroy the Crow^n Gall trees. The honest nurseryman does not 

 need to have that statement required of him, and the majority of 

 them are honest. The dishonest ones will not respect it. Here is 

 an example of the way this policy works out. One of the oldest and 

 most reliable nurserymen in Iowa was taken ill just before the spring 

 shipping season, with pneumonia. He had been warned that he 

 had more Crown Gall than usual. His foreman had a slight in- 

 terest in the business, and before we knew it he had sorted out a lot 

 of Crown Gall trees and shipped them to a nurseryman, a dealer, 

 who was going to resell them. I happened to be at that dealer's 

 grounds by accident when the consignment of trees arrived, otherwise 

 I think it probable that they w^ould all have been delivered to cus- 

 tomers. This raises the question as to how many Crown Gall trees 

 are being shipped in other places by the employees of nurserymen with- 

 out the personal knowledge of those nurserymen. The grower above 

 referred to was not personally responsible. He had given proper 

 directions and he was too ill personally to superintend any business. 

 In very many cases large nursery^men are obliged to depend on men 

 who cannot be kept up to the standard the nurserymen would A\dsh. 

 What are we going to do in such a case as this ? 



Now, I would add in closing, that I think this Crown Gall problem 

 is one which we should do our best to take care of. A nurseryman asks 

 us to inspect and issue a certificate on his stock. We may know 

 that he is doing all that he can to keep this disease out of his nur- 

 sery, nevertheless, a good deal of Crown Gall is found. He naturally 

 calls upon us for directions as to how he can grow clean stock. If we 

 are to refuse him a certificate because of the presence of any disease 

 it seems to me that we should be able to give him more than a few 



