WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24. MORNING SESSION, 

 11.45 A.M. 



Legislation against Plant Diseases and Pests. 



Chairman: SIR SYDNEY OLIVIER, K.C.M.G., Permanent 

 Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, formerly Governor 

 of Jamaica. 



THE CHAIRMAN : Gentlemen The subject for discussion at 

 this meeting is " Legislation against Plant Diseases and 

 Pests," and it is a subject in which I hope this Congress will 

 take particular interest. It is a subject which we shall be treat- 

 ing in a somewhat different manner from that in which we 

 have dealt with our subjects hitherto. Hitherto we have had 

 contributions from men of experience in different branches of 

 agriculture, telling us what they have done, what methods 

 they have pursued they and their Governments and their 

 Associations as a sort of object-lesson in what might be 

 done in other parts of the world. But to-day we shall be 

 dealing rather with what is truly an international question ; 

 that is to say, the question of regulations to be made in all 

 countries and all colonies with a view to diminishing the 

 probability of the spread of plant diseases from one country 

 to another, as well as in any particular country. It is a good 

 many years now since the attention of the world was called 

 to the necessity of this by the outbreak of two very serious 

 diseases, the phylloxera in France and the coffee disease in 

 the East. Those two outbreaks called the attention of the 

 world to the necessity both of some kind of internal adminis- 

 trative reform, and also, if possible, of some kind of inter- 

 national Convention with regard to the restriction of such 

 diseases. As a consequence of those outbreaks we have 

 had a progressive study of plant diseases, and a progressive 

 study also of the methods of dealing with and controlling 

 those diseases so as to prevent their spread in the countries 



