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fices made to maintain the high standard of his stock. The soundness 

 of this view of the case has been demonstrated by the action of the nur- 

 serymen of this State who voluntarily have gone to the expense of hav- 

 ing their nurseries examined by experts, have destroyed thousands of 

 trees, and have erected fumigation houses for the treatment of all stock 

 bought or sold. This they have done not through fear of punishment, 

 but in order to protect themselves and customers, and to retain public 

 confidence in the character of their stock. With nurserymen so wide 

 awake to their own interests, it would seem that legislation to compel 

 them to clear their places from the scale, should any occur, would be 

 unnecessary. 



'Jliere is, however, another side to the case. Several years may be 

 required to teach an unscrupulous dealer the old lesson of the value of 

 honesty in business dealings, and in the mean time he may have been 

 sending the scale broadcast throughout the State, working incalculable 

 injury to hundreds of orchardists and jiroperty owners. Again, there 

 may be nurserymen with no reputation to lose, who depend for their 

 income upon sales to tree peddlers and to new customers, and who will 

 not hesitate to unload in the market any infested stock they may possess. 

 In either case, a law to provide means for the detection and punishment 

 of such offences would work a benefit alike to the public and reputable 

 nurserymen. Another contingency should also be considered. A care- 

 less or malicious property owner might allow badly infested trees to 

 stand on an estate adjoining a nursery or an orchard. No matter how 

 carefully and thoroughly the nurseryman or orchardist might labor to 

 maintain the freedom of his trees from the scale, such a result would be 

 almost an impossibility until the original source of infestation had been 

 stamped out. 



The issuing of certificates to nurserymen whose stock is found to be 

 free from the scale as yet has not been authorized by law in this State. 

 Since nurserymen are the ones who will benefit most by legislation 

 against the San Jose scale, the matter of securing such legislation is 

 one in which they may properly take the initiative. 



Suggestions to Nurserymen. 



In order to hold the trade of his patrons, a nurseryman must list a 

 wide range of trees and shrubs, many of which cannot be grown in his 

 locality, and for which he must depend upon other dealers. Remarkable 

 as it may seem to those not familiar with the facts, our Massachusetts 

 nurserymen are unable to raise apple trees in competition with those 

 grown in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other States, where 

 climatic and soil conditions are more favorable to the rapid growth of 

 the yoxing trees. Yet in the matter of evergreens and many other shade 

 trees our nurserymen supply the needs of others less favorably situated. 

 Thus each nurseryman is largely dependent upon his fellow tradesmen 

 for a considerable part of his stock; and, this being the case, infested 

 trees are often unwittingly disseminated, since it is impossible, in the 

 rush of the .shipping season, to open and carefully examine all the stock 

 received before using it in filling orders. There are, however, certain 

 precautions which all nurserymen may adopt, and thus reduce the 

 chance of receiving and disseminating infested stock. Among them 

 are : — 



1. Dealing with Reputable Firms. — There are certain nursery com- 

 panies whose dishonest}' in sending out stock falsely named or badly 

 infested with the scale has made them notorious. Their disreputable 

 business proceedings are matters of common comment among nursery- 

 men with whom I have conversed, and yet I have frequently found that 

 many of our Massachusetts growers have purchased stock from these 

 firms within recent years. For example, a certain New Jersey firm has 



