8 DANGER OF SPREAD OF GIPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. 



office, and, on the other hand, material is reported by the customs 

 office which is not reported by the railroad companies. For this 

 reason there is no certainty that all of the imported stock is reported, 

 and undoubtedly some of it is miscellaneously distributed and never 

 is examined at all. This condition of affairs, from local experience 

 in his State, was strongly brought out by Dr. J. B. Smith, ento- 

 mologist of New Jersey, in his testimony before the House Commit- 

 tee on Agriculture. 



Dr. Smith also called attention to two other features of the im- 

 portation of nursery stock which have an important bearing on the 

 entrance of such pests as the gipsy moth and the brown-tail moth. 

 The first of these relates to the importation by large department 

 stores of New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, and in large 

 interior towns, of inferior stock of ornamental plants, roses, and even 

 fruit trees, massed down under enormous pressure in large boxes, 

 thousands of plants in a single case. This largely worthless and 

 often infested stock is distributed by these agencies at a very low 

 price, or is given to the customers, and goes in small parcels here 

 and there where it can not be followed, and necessarily entails the 

 greatest risk of the introduction of dangerous pests and plant dis- 

 eases. It is almost impossible to make any proper examination of 

 such material even when its importation and destination are reported. 

 Some of these shipments contain hundreds of thousands of plants, 

 so that the chances of overlooking infestation are exceedingly great. 



The other condition referred to by Dr. Smith is the importation 

 by private persons, owners of large estates, or head gardeners, of 

 greater or less quantities of ornamental and floral stock, such miscel- 

 laneous importations being very difficult to get advice of, and un- 

 doubtedly many of them are never reported or inspected. 



CONDITIONS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



A recent and very undesirable development in the introduction of 

 foreign nursery stock has come to light in Washington, D. C., and 

 probably is occurring in other large cities. In the latter part of 

 March it was learned that a large shipment of miscellaneous orna- 

 mental stock had been made by a Dutch nursery firm to a local 

 auctioneer, to be sold under the hammer, and, on the authority of the 

 auctioneer in question, without previous arrangement. This new 

 development seems to have arisen from an experience of the previous 

 year (1910), where a shipment of stock was refused by the consignee 

 and was turned over to this same auctioneer for sale. The results 

 were evidently sufficiently satisfactory to lead the Holland firm to 

 make the shipment of stock this year direct to the auctioneer, on the 

 chance of a profitable sale. 



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