February, '11] marlatt: national quarantine 113 



distribution of infested nursery stock during these years. Some idea 

 of the situation can be gained, however, from a brief summary of 

 importations and foreign conditions dra^\^l largely from the annual 

 reports of this bureau, by Dr. Howard, for the years 1909 and 1910. 



Brown-tail moth nests imported in 1909. — The first discovery of nests 

 of the brown-tail moths in foreign nursery stock was in a shipment of 

 seedlings from Angers, France, to New York. The discovery was made 

 and reported to this bureau by the commissioner of agriculture of that 

 state. A little later, advices from Ohio indicated that the winter nests 

 of the brown-tail moth had been found upon seedlings imported from 

 the same locality in France. Warning letters were promptly sent out 

 by Dr. Howard to the different state entomologists and a special 

 arrangement was made through the kindness of the secretary of the 

 treasury with the customhouses and by agreement with the railroads, 

 so that the bureau was notified of all cases of plants received at the 

 customs ports or handled by the principal railroad companies. By this 

 means the receipt and ultimate destinations were ascertained of prob- 

 ably all the imported stock. The bureau was thus enabled to notify 

 state inspectors and other competent persons near the points of ulti- 

 mate destinations of such packages, and inspection was brought about 

 in probably all instances in the cases of plants received after January, 

 and also probably before that time. In all, information was secured 

 concerning nearly 800 shipments divided among 35 different states. 

 •In shipments to 15 of these states, namely, Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, 

 Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, 

 Nebraska, New Jersej^, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Penn- 

 sylvania, nests of the browni-tail moth were found, and in one locality 

 in Ohio a single broken egg-mass of the gypsy moth was found. These 

 brown-tail nests, each containing four to five hundred young larvae, 

 were found by hundreds in these shipments, some 7,000 nests (2,800,- 

 000 larvae) being found in the shipments to New York state alone. 

 Prof. P. J. Parrott, of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 at Geneva, N. Y., also found in his summer's inspection still another 

 European fruit pest, Hy-ponomeuta padella, which had probably been 

 introduced on these same French seedlings. 



Brown-tail moth nests imported in 1910. — In the importing season of 

 1909 and 1910, in spite of promises on the part of French authorities 

 to see that proper inspection should be made, the shipments of nursery 

 stock from France again brought to this country many brown-tail 

 moth nests. Moreover, one shipment of nursery stock from Belgium 

 to Louisiana contained an egg cluster of the gypsy moth. All of this 

 imported European stock was again followed up, so far as possible, by 

 a continuation of the arrangement referred to of the previous year with 



