482 AGRICULTURAL APPROPRIATION BILL, 1924. 



Mr. Buchanan. Have you any specific insects or injurious animals 

 for which your inspectors are looking and have you any specific ones 5 



by name ? '. 



Doctor Marlatt. Yes. Each one of these quarantines relates to 

 a specific pest, that is, most of them relate to one pest. 



Mr. Buchanan. According to what country they come from? 



Doctor Marlatt. According to the country and the product. 

 For instance, we have grain quarantines against pests that are 

 prevalent in trans-Paciiic countries, and we control tne entry of all 

 grain from trans-Pacific countries on account of various grain diseases. 



Mr. Buchanan. What do j'^ou watch for at the eastern ports? 



Doctor Marlatt. At the eastern ports we control the entry of 

 cotton on account of this pink boUworm. We control the entry of 

 all the fruit which comes to us — that is, we regulate it and see that 

 proper safeguards are taken in connection with its entry — all of the 

 fruit that comes to us from the countries and islands south of us, 

 that is, from Cuba, the Isle of Pines, etc., and from all the Central 

 American countries. 



Mr. Buchanan. In other words, they have some injurious pests 

 in connecion with fruit in those countries which we do not have 'i 



Doctor Marlatt. There are two or three quarantines involved in 

 that. Some of them relate to certain fruit hies which occur in the 

 West Indies, Central America, and in Mexico; others relate to other 

 insects — for example, one to what is knowTi as the black fly, which 

 is prevalent in Cuba and the Central American countries and which 

 would be a very serious pest to all the citrus cultures of the south 

 and, perhaps, to the Pacific coast later on. Ihese quarantines, 

 therefore, have for their object the prevention of the entry of some 

 known specific pest or pests. Incidentally our inspectors are on 

 the lookout all the time for things that are not Known and not 

 expected. 



Several of the worst pests which have come into this country are 

 pests that we did not know anything about beforehand; they come 

 on us as a surprise, but if our men are there they are competent to 

 detect many such pests. For example, the chestnut bark disease, 

 the citrus canker and corn borer were surprises of that kind, but if 

 we had had our existing quarantines in force 15 years ago instead of 

 10 years ago we might have excluded some six first-class pests, such 

 as the citrus canker, potato wart, oriental fruit worm, Japanese 

 beetle, European corn borer and the camphor scale. This last is a 

 new and very dangerous scale for the South; not only for camphor 

 and many other plants but for citrus orchards. It got in during the 

 period during which we were trying to get plant fiuarantine legisla- 

 tion. It took four years of effort to get this legislation, and during 

 that period the six very important pests enumerated got in when we 

 had no control and no means of keeping them out. 



FOR EXTERMINATION OF THE POTATO WART. 



Mr. Anderson. We will next take up the item on page 307, to 

 enal>le the Secretary of Agriculture to meet the cmcrj^oncy caused 

 by the establishment of tiie potato wart in eastern Pennsylvania, 

 and to provide means for the extermination of this disease in Penn- 

 sylvania or elsewhere. 



