April, '12] GLENN: EXEMPT NURSERY STOCK 219 



stock adds little to their trouble and expense; but with the nurseries 

 having from fifty to five hundred acres or more of ornamental stock, 

 much of which is not susceptible, the case is quite different. 



One of the best firms in our state recently wrote us as follows : 



"Your sweeping regulations add needlessly to the cost. The result 

 is either to cut down profits, or, by making one do his own interpreting, 

 callous one's moral motives. 



The removing of this handicap, with reasonable restrictions, would 

 greatly help. . . . We sell large shrubs with balls of earth, 

 and the several handlings shake much of the soil off and crush the 

 roots." 



The nurserymen have a just cause for complaint, and are entitled 

 to just treatment. The honest nurserymen are in favor of proper 

 restrictions, and when they are made, will cooperate in good faith; 

 the dishonest ones will evade all restrictions possible, and the more 

 exacting the restrictions are, the more they will evade them. 



The practice of requiring the fumigation of all deciduous stock 

 prevails in a majority of the states. They follow it, in most cases, 

 not because it is regarded as necessary for adequate protection, but 

 rather to avoid complicating matters by making exceptions, and to 

 keep up the high standard maintained in other states in which 

 they desire their certificates to be honored. If it were generally 

 understood that making exemptions, ^^'ith proper restrictions, would 

 not tend to discredit their certificates, some states would be glad to 

 abandon the practice. Judging from replies received from the ento- 

 mologists of nearly all the states to a question bearing on this point, 

 it appears that such exemptions would not interfere with the honoring 

 of certificates except in about half a dozen states. 



It is a fact well kno's\Ti to all that the scale is being disseminated 

 more or less on nursery stock in spite of efforts to prevent it. But 

 it is not the non-susceptible stock that is responsible for it. I doubt 

 if any one has any positive evidence that it has ever been dissemi- 

 nated on any of the plants in Doctor Britton's third list, although 

 some of them have been known to be quite heavily infested. The 

 exemption of this list with a few exceptions would in no way increase 

 the amount of scale dissemination. It is being disseminated on fruit 

 and susceptible ornamental stock, and this comes about in several 

 ways. It is not possible to detect it in every case; complete super- 

 vision is not alwaj^s possible, and nurserymen are not all as careful 

 and conscientious as they should be. 



While we should be just in dealing with the nurserymen, and not 

 place unnecessary burdens on them, we must not fail to protect as 

 far as possible the buyers of their stock. Any plant which has been 



