QUARANTINE LAWS AND ORDERS. 19 



the quarantine laws in the district to which he is accredited. By ref- 

 erence to the interpretation of the law on another page, it will appear 

 that this appointment does not interfere with the duties of the quaran- 

 tine guardians or relieve them of any responsibilities excepting at the 

 ports above indicated. 



Giving Notice. 



Quarantine guardians should require all railroad and express com- 

 panies and other carriers to comply with the laws requiring the car- 

 riers to notify the guardians of the arrival of nursery stock from out- 

 side the State. Also see that the packages containing such stock are 

 marked in accordance with the law. (See sections 1 and 2, Horticul- 

 tural Quarantine Law of 1899.) Attention is called to the require- 

 ment regarding peach yellows and other contagious diseases, contained 

 in section 5 of the same act. 



General Inspection. 



All quarantine guardians are requested by the State Quarantine 

 Officer to be particularly active and observant in the inspection of crops 

 and articles liable to harbor insects and diseases against which a quar- 

 antine has been declared and to instruct their inspectors to assist in 

 this work. Fruit flies of all kinds should be at once reported; gypsy 

 moth, cotton boll weevil, alfalfa weevil, eel worm, melon fly, orange 

 maggot and citrus white fly should head the list of foreign pests to be 

 looked for. and, if found, to be extirpated at any cost. We have had 

 one of these perils to deal with at Marysville, Oroville, and Bakersfield. 

 It required perhaps years for the white fly to get such a deep hold at 

 these places. There is less excuse now for letting these insects colonize 

 without discovery, for the State has now a corps of forty-two quaran- 

 tine guardians where none were before, more men and means provided 

 for the State Commission work and thousands of growers cooperating 

 actively in the discovery or exclusion of our orchard foes. We ma}' 

 expect an invasion from some of these pests, but should be ready to 

 meet it with all the advantage possible in favor of the fruit growers. 



Inspecting Mail Packages. 



Serious and continued efforts will be made to secure an order from 

 the Postmaster General, permitting the quarantine officers to inspect 

 packages containing plants arriving in California by mail, before such 

 packages are delivered. For a while this privilege was granted by 

 some of the postmasters of the State, and other of these officials would 

 notify the inspectors of the delivery, after which the inspector would 

 follow the package and make the examination. Finally, notice was 

 received 'from the Postoffice Department to the effect that this privilege 

 was not approved at Washington, and that the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, to which the matter was referred, ' ' disapproved of any policy that 

 would interfere with the free interchange of plants and seeds by mail 

 throughout the United States." This leaves as our only recourse an 

 arrangement between the quarantine guardians and the local postmas- 

 ter by which the latter shall notify the guardian of the delivery of each 

 package by mail whose contents are subject to inspection. Every quar- 

 antine guardian should make this arrangement with the postmasters of 

 his countv. 



