METCALF: WHITE PINE BLISTER RUST 3611 
not so flexible but that a single unconvinced or cantankerous indi- 
vidual can nullify the work of an entire community. 
2. The laws governing plant eradication are administered in 
different states by various officers, but in the majority of states by the 
state nursery inspector, who is nearly always an entomologist. Some 
of these entomologists are thoroughly trained in plant diseases and 
fully appreciate their significance. Others have little knowledge of 
them and less interest. All of these officers are overworked already. 
In spite of the activities of plant pathologists, there is profound popular 
ignorance as to the nature and significance of plant diseases and 
especially of the dangerous qualities of newly imported diseases. The 
general public is far better informed regarding “bugs”’ than regarding 
fungi and as a matter of fact the average man considers that plant 
diseases are caused by “‘bugs.”’ 
3. In the case of the blister rust, there is no single interest or 
centralized affiliation of interests whose securities are menaced by the 
disease. The white pine industry is diffused over a wide territory 
and in the hands of many separate individuals and organizations. 
What is everybody’s business is likely to be nobody’s business. If 
the white pine industry, like the redwood industry, for example, or 
like the citrus industry, were in the hands of a few people or consti- 
tuted the dominant business in certain areas, the control of the disease 
would be much simpler. 
4. Up to the present time there has been no adequate quarantine 
against the disease, either state or national. This difficulty, however, 
will shortly cease to exist as many states have recently declared 
quarantines and on June 1, possibly earlier, an adequate national 
quarantine will go into effect. 
5. Finally, we have a very serious consideration which is applicable 
to all undertakings at the present time. The nation is at war. The 
young men who would ordinarily be employed in an eradication 
campaign will soon be drawn away into military work or into the 
various lines of industry which bear directly upon the conduct of the 
war. The majority of the persons employed in this particular eradica- 
tion campaign can only be employed from the middle of April to the 
first of November. Necessarily, men will be loath to accept such 
temporary employment when they can in other lines secure permanent 
employment at an equally. high or higher wage. In any case, the 
work if successfully prosecuted or indeed if prosecuted at all will 
involve much larger expenditures for wages than in normal times. 
What then is the outlook for the control of the white pine blister 
rust? It may be expected that the future course of the disease will 
be much like that of the gypsy and browntail moths; that is, the dis- 
