686 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY IN NEW YORK STATE 



prevailed, among the nurserymen of the state, owing to the fact 

 that shipments of nursery seedlings- and stocks from* abroad were 

 arriving in this state badly infested by the winter nests of brown- 

 tail moth. 



Neither of these pests have become established in the state 

 of New York, and extreme measures were taken to prevent their 

 coming and to avoid their distribution. The amendment of the 

 law provided that all nursery .stock coming into the state should 

 be examined at point of destination. To carry out this pro- 

 vision, the Commissioner of Agriculture was authorized to issue 

 orders relative to injurious insect control and the control of 

 deleterious fungous diseases of trees and plants. Under this 

 authority he issued orders requiring all persons who received 

 nursery stock from points outside of the state of New York to 

 hold them unpacked and unopened until an inspector could be 

 present to examine the shipments. This work has been followed 

 up to the extent of an examination of about eight thousand ship- 

 ments a year. This particular line of work is rather expensive, 

 though it has been justified many times by the discovery of in- 

 fested stocks of trees and plants which surely would have caused 

 the establishment of deleterious pests within our borders. It may 

 seem unnecessary to go so far as to examine small packages of 

 nursery stock, but it is through the careless introduction of small 

 packages that great injury may accrue. 



Owing to the short time during which nursery shipments are 

 received in the state, it^is not strange that occasionally some 

 packages may be overlooked. In two cases this has occurred, 

 and the eggs of the gipsy moth were brought into the state of 

 New York and became established in limited localities. In one 

 case the cost of eradication may have been as much as five thou- 

 sand dollars; and in another case, where the gipsy moth had a 

 little longer time to spread in the wild and mountainous regions 

 of AVestchester County, the expense of suppression may have been 

 twenty-five thousand dollars. These expenditures were justified 

 on the ground that, inasmuch as this pest had not become estab- 

 lished within the state, every effort should be exerted to stamp it 

 out at the very beginning of its development. When one considers 

 that the New England states spent upwards of ten millions of 

 dollars for the control of the gipsy and brown-tail moths, it 



