32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOLL WEEVIL CONVENTION. 



to the agricultural interest of the State, would be sustained by the 

 Courts. 



"The right of the State, as of the man," says the Supreme Court of the 

 United States, in a recent case, "is self-protection, and with the State that 

 right involves the universally acknowledged power and duty to enact and 

 enforce all such laws not in plain conflict with some provision of the 

 State or federal constitution, as may rightly be deemed necessary or ex- 

 pedient for the safety, health, morals, comfort, and welfare of its people." 



In the exercise of its police power, the State, or any board to which it 

 may delegate its power, can take its citizen's property, without compensa- 

 tion, and against his will, and destroy it just as well as it could resort to 

 the destruction of a house threatened by a spreading conflagration, or the 

 clothes of a person who has fallen a victim to small-pox. Such property 

 is not taken under circumstances of this character for public use." It is 

 destroyed because, in the judgement of those to whom the law has con- 

 fided the power of decision, it is of no use and is a source of public 

 danger. 



Within the past twenty years, a number of States have adopted drastic 

 measures for the protection of the agricultural and horticultural interests ; 

 and the last few years have been noteworthy in the interest shown in such 

 legislation, especially by horticulturalists, in the question of legislation 

 against insects, and several States have enacted new laws, while many 

 others have similar legislation under advisement. 



The enactments of the various States upon the subject will be found in 

 bulletins No. n and 13 of the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 issued under the direction and supervision of Dr. L. O. Howard, Entomo- 

 logist of that Department. The latest act on the subject, and the one to 

 which I would call your especial attention,, is the one passed by Virginia. 

 By this act, a State Crop Pest Commission is established with power and 

 authority to promulgate rules and regulations on the subject of insect 

 pests, and the State Entomologist is directed to proceed to investigate, 

 control, eradict and prevent the dissemination of any dangerous pests 

 as far as possible, and these rules and regulations have all the force and 

 effect of the law. 



Our own State in 1894 passed an act to prevent the introduction, propa- 

 gation or distribution in this State of any fruit trees or fruit growth 

 affected with any infectious disease, or infectious insects injurious to fruit 

 growth, and penalties are prescribed for any wilful neglect or violation 

 of this Act. Under Sec. 3 of this Act, it is made the duty of the ento- 

 mologist of the State Agricultural Experiment Station, at the request 

 of the director of said station, to visit any section of the State, where 

 there are diseased fruit trees, or tree growth infected with disease or 

 insects injurious to tree growth, to examine and report on such diseased 



