CHAPTER XXII. 

 LAWS AFFECTING ORCHARDING. 



In the recent wide extension of the legal regulation of business 

 the orchard industry has not been allowed to escape. The first 

 of these fruit laws aimed at the control of orchard pests, prin- 

 cipally those carried in nursery stock, but to a certain extent those 

 in the orchards themselves. The later laws have undertaken to 

 regulate principally the packing and sale of fruit. While many 

 of the first laws were crude and while some of them have been 

 flat failures, there is no question that many of them have been of 

 marked assistance to the fruit industry. 



PESTS IN NURSERY-STOCK 



Let us look first at the laws in relation to nursery-stock. These 

 have been of two types : First, those which required the examina- 

 tion and perhaps fumigation of nursery-stock coming into a State 

 or nation; second, State laws requiring the inspection of nurs- 

 ery-stock. The value of an examination of stock is quite variable, 

 depending on the conspicuousness of the pest and the conscience 

 of the inspector. Where the pest is one easily seen like the brown- 

 tail moth for example, a thorough examination ought to prevent 

 absolutely its entry into a State or its shipment from a nursery. 

 On the other hand, when a pest is as inconspicuous as the San Jose 

 scale, it is absolutely impossible, even after the most rigid inspec- 

 tion, to say that the stock is free from it. It can only be said that 

 none was discovered. The value of such an inspection as this last 

 rests on the fact that if the stock were badly infected the inspector 

 would discover it. 



When a pest can be destroyed by some treatment of the nurs- 

 ery-stock, such as fumigating with hydrocyanic acid gas for the 

 San Jose scale, the treatment is of far more value than the best 

 inspection ever given. It practically guarantees the freedom of 

 the stock from this pest. The difficulty is that so few of our pests 

 can be destroyed in this way. 

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