76 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. 4. 



The right of the nursery inspection service to take up and in- 

 vestigate this disease outside the nurseries having been ques- 

 tioned, it may be well to state that this has been done under 

 the authority conferred upon the inspector by section 7, chapter 

 507, of the Acts of 1912, which reads, in part, as follows: — 



The state nursery inspector . . . may inspect any orchard ... or 

 other place where trees, shrubs or other plants are growing out of doors, 

 either on public or private land, which he may know or have reason to 

 suspect is infested with the San Jose scale or any serious insect pest or 

 plant disease, when in his judgment such pests or diseases are liable to 

 cause financial loss to adjoining owners; and may serve written notice 

 upon the owner ... or person in charge of trees, shrubs or other plants 

 thus infested, of the presence of such pests or plant diseases, with a 

 statement that they constitute a public nuisance, together with directions 

 to abate the same, giving the methods of treatment for the abatement 

 thereof, and stating a time within which the nuisance must be abated 

 in accordance with the methods given in the notice. 



This portion of the law, then, distinctly authorizes efforts 

 by the nursery inspection service to control dangerous insects 

 and diseases throughout the State, and would seem to con- 

 clusively settle the question of the right of the nursery in- 

 spector to do this work. Moreover, so far as can be ascer- 

 tained, there is no law permitting any other section of the State 

 government to undertake it. 



The question whether this disease is a "serious plant disease" 

 within the terms of the law comes next for consideration, and 

 here an outline of its history in other countries must be given 

 to throw light on this point. 



The pine blister rust is probably a native of Europe, and 

 there it apparently originally attacked the Swiss or Stone pine 

 {Pinus cembra). When the white pine was introduced into 

 Europe the disease appears to have found in this tree one in 

 which it can thrive even better than in its original host, and 

 it rapidly spread to the white pines established in Europe. 



What it has done there on this new host may best be shown 

 by statements of some of the European plant pathologists who 

 have studied it most carefully. 



The disease was first observed in Sweden in 1887. Eriksson 

 states that at first it attacked only young trees, but that later 



