8 DANGER OF SPREAD OF GIPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. 
office, and, on the other hand, material is reported by the customs 
office which is not reported by the railroad companies. For this 
reason there is no certainty that all of the imported stock is reported, 
and undoubtedly some of it is miscellaneously distributed and never 
is examined at all. This condition of affairs, from local experience 
in his State, was strongly brought out by Dr. J. B. Smith, ento- 
mologist of New Jersey, in his testimony before the House Commit- 
tee on Agriculture. 
Dr. Smith also called attention to two other features of the im- 
portation of nursery stock which have an important bearing on the 
entrance of such pests as the gipsy moth and the brown-tail moth. 
The first of these relates to the importation by large department 
stores of New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, and in large 
interior towns, of inferior stock of ornamental plants, roses, and even 
fruit trees, massed down under enormous pressure in large boxes, 
thousands of plants in a single case. This largely worthless and 
often infested stock is distributed by these agencies at a very low 
price, or is given to the customers, and goes in small parcels here 
and there where it can not be followed, and necessarily entails the 
greatest risk of the introduction of dangerous pests and plant dis- 
eases. It is almost impossible to make any proper examination of 
such material even when its importation and destination are reported. 
Some of these shipments contain hundreds of thousands of plants, 
so that the chances of overlooking infestation are exceedingly great. 
The other condition referred to by Dr. Smith is the importation 
by private persons, owners of large estates, or head gardeners, of 
greater or less quantities of ornamental and floral stock, such miscel- 
laneous importations being very difficult to get advice of, and un- 
doubtedly many of them are never reported or inspected. 
CONDITIONS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
A recent and very undesirable development in the introduction of 
foreign nursery stock has come to light in Washington, D. C., and 
probably is occurring in other large cities. In the latter part of 
March it was learned that a large shipment of miscellaneous orna- 
mental stock had been made by a Dutch nursery firm to a local 
auctioneer, to be sold under the hammer, and, on the authority of the 
auctioneer in question, without previous arrangement. This new 
development seems to have arisen from an experience of the previous 
year (1910), where a shipment of stock was refused by the consignee 
and was turned over to this same auctioneer for sale. The results 
were evidently sufficiently satisfactory to lead the Holland firm to 
make the shipment of stock this year direct to the auctioneer, on the 
chance of a profitable sale. 
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