April, '12] FORBES: NEGLIGENT ORCHARDI8TS 205 



Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the 

 American Association of Official Horti- 

 cultural Inspectors — {Continued) 



Second Session December 29, 1.30 p. m., New National Museum 



Meeting was called to order by President Sherman who introduced 

 Dr. S. A. Forbes, 



WHAT SHOULD THE STATE REQUIRE OF A NEGLIGENT 

 OWNER OF A DANGEROUS ORCHARD? 



By Stephen A. P'orbes, Illinois State Entomologist 



In suggesting this topic for this meeting — and I believe it was placed 

 upon our programme at my request — I had no intention of preparing 

 a paper upon it myself, but thought merely of obtaining a discussion 

 of it in the hope that we might have a comparison of ideas and methods 

 which would be helpful to us all. Perhaps the best way for me to 

 open such a discussion is to describe to you the situation as it has 

 developed in my own .state, and the solution of our problem at which 

 we have lately arrived. 



I have been at work now for several years in Illinois, under our 

 inspection law, upon what has come to appear as an impracticable 

 programme. Under our law, dangerously infested orchards and other 

 such property are a public nuisance, the maintenance of which, after 

 due notice and requirement, is punishable as a misdemeanor; but 

 the failure of the owner of such dangerous property to suppress the 

 nuisance pointed out to him has been followed by an effort to suppress 

 it on my part, the expenses of the operation to be collected from the 

 negligent owner, who is further liable to prosecution and fine. 



This system works out in the following manner: I can only deter- 

 mine whether premises are so infested as to be dangerous to adjacent 

 property by an inspection made in the fall after the leaves have dropped 

 and after the season of multiplication of the San Jose scale is virtually 

 over. With the area now to be covered by such inspections in 

 Illinois, the whole early part of the winter is required to take this 

 first step. I must then notify the responsible owner of the existence 

 of the nuisance on his premises, and must prescribe methods for its 

 removal, giving him, of course, sufficient time to make his preparations 

 and do this work; and his work must be done in time to permit me to 

 make a second general inspection throughout the whole territory 

 infested, to ascertain whether these nuisances have actually been 



