278 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 4 



ATTITUDE OF THE NURSERYMAN TOWARD A NATIONAL 

 INSPECTION AND QUARANTINE LAW 



For tlic last fourteen years a strong effort has been made to secure 

 national quarantine and inspection legislation, relating to imported 

 plant stock. This effort has been blocked very largely by the opposi- 

 tion of a small body of importing nurserymen. The main body of 

 nurserymen have interests identical with fruit growers, and seem to 

 be generally in favor of protective legislation, and the National 

 Nurseryman, the principal organ of the nurserymen in this country, 

 has taken positive stand in favor of such legislation. 



To obtain immediate legislation, to give the protection whicli is so 

 much needed just now, it was agreed to modify the bill before Congress 

 (H. R. 26897), to meet the final objection of the importing nurserymen, 

 inasmuch as at the conference last wmter with the House Committee 

 on Agriculture, these nurserymen, ti. rough Mr. Pitkin, the chairman 

 of their committee expressly stated t' at if their o])jections were met, 

 they would join with the entomologists and fruit growers in urging 

 the passage of this measure. It was arranged, therefore, that the 

 quarantine provision of section 8 should be modified to apply specifi- 

 cally and solely to the "potato wart disease" which is likely to jeopar- 

 dize our whole potato industry, and the "white pine blister rust" 

 the European disease, which is the cause of great losses wherever it 

 appears. Thus modified, the section does not touch the interests of 

 the importers of nursery seedlings of fruit and ornamental stock, and 

 it was confidently hoped and expected that the bill Avould become a 

 law at the session just closed. 



To get action at this session of Congress, it Avas necessary to 

 bring the bill out of its regular order and place it on the Unanimous 

 Consent Calendar, where the objection of one member prevents 

 legislation. The Nursery bill came up on the 6th of February, and 

 was objected to by a member apparently acting in behalf of the im- 

 porting nurserymen, and went back to the regular calendar. 



In the closing days of the session, the bill was again brought up 

 on the Unanimous Consent Calendar. There was a brief discussion 

 of it, chiefly participated in by the opponents of the measure and the 

 motion to suspend the rules, and pass the bill was lost, the necessary 

 two thirds not voting therefor, evidently largely through lack of appre- 

 ciation by the house as a whole of the urgent need of the measure. 

 (See Congressional Record, March 2, 1911, pages 4072-4076.) 



This action of the nurserymen through their representatives in 

 Congress is in exact accord with the previous behavior, as the follow- 

 ing historical summary indicates. This summary is also interesting 



