February, '16] O'byrxe: Florida xlrsery inspection' 225 



icate the trouble, it became necessary to ask the nursery concern to 

 prepare an accurate list of all the shipments which they had made 

 since the original discovery of the trouble, that they could be traced 

 down and inspected. These nursery concerns were facing a grave 

 crisis, income was cut off and expenses soaring, so that they were laying 

 off all of the help they could. Naturally they were slow in preparing 

 these lists of shipments and many inaccuracies were found to occur. 

 As a result, the work of inspection was retarded and hampered severely. 

 Suppose that these nurseries had gone bankrupt and the proprietors 

 refused to prepare such a list, or suppose that a fire had destroyed their 

 invoices, the result would have been terrible. We would have then 

 been helpless and would probably have had this disease fastened upon 

 us forever. 



As a result of the foregoing experience, we learned that we should 

 have on file in the office of the Nursery Inspector, an accurate record 

 of the movement of each and every plant that could be classed as 

 nurserj'- stock, whether moving into from without the state or merely 

 moving from place to place within the state, whether grown by a nur- 

 seryman or a person not regularly in the business, whether sold, 

 given away or merely moved from one piece of property to the other 

 by the owner. The question was to evolve a system that was iron- 

 clad, easy of enforcement and not too burdensome on the nursery. 

 The system adopted follows : 



Each person who wishes to move any nursery stock in Florida shall 

 apply to the Nursery Inspector for inspection. If the stock is found to 

 be sufficiently clean a certificate is made out covering the stock in- 

 spected. This certificate is filed in the office of the Nursery Inspector, 

 and the owner of the stock is privileged to purchase, through the 

 Nurserj^ Inspector, certificate tags bearing practically the same word- 

 ing as the Certificate of Inspection. 



One, and only one, of these tags must be attached to each and every 

 package of nursery stock shipped. They are consecutively numbered 

 and a record is kept of the numbers furnished to each and every person 

 or firm, who are required to account for every tag they received, giving 

 the name and address of the purchaser of the bundle of stock upon 

 which a tag is used, the name and address of the person to whom 

 shipped, and an exact description of the contents together with the 

 number of the certificate tag used thereon. To do this they merely 

 make out their invoices in triplicate instead of in duplicate as hereto- 

 fore. This invoice shows the number of the certificate tag used on 

 the shipment and one of the copies is sent to the office of the Nursery 

 Inspector for permanent filing. Shipments of nursery stock which 

 do not meet these requirements are illegal. 



