HYGIENE OF PLANTS. 
Nothing perhaps comes out plainer in a study of diseases of plants, bacterial diseases 
included, than the fact that such diseases are very often introduced on species or varieties 
brought in from other localities. No one, for example, would care to buy seed-potatoes 
from a field subject to brown rot or basal stem-rot, cabbage-seed from plants affected by 
black rot, sweet corn seed from fields subject to Stewart’s disease, olive trees with olive- 
knot, pear-trees with pear- -blight, plum-trees carrying with them the black spot organism, 
or peach-trees grown in nurseries subject to crown-gall, and yet without knowing it planters 
are doing these things all the time. 
Viewed in this light, the introduction of new things from all sorts of places is not an 
unmixed good. Many diseases are spread in this way. Especially is the importation in 
bulk and the immediate general distribution of all sorts of seeds and plants to be deprecated. 
It would be much safer to import seeds and plants in small quantities and multiply them 
for a year or two under strict Government supervision in experiment gardens before making 
a general distribution. Thedissemination of many scales and other injurious insects would 
also be prevented by this method. Up to this time, with local exceptions, e.g., France, 
Germany, California, growers in all parts of the world have been allowed to import and 
distribute at will. The growers in the United States in particular do almost exactly as 
they please. The Department of Agriculture also has sometimes imported and distributed 
without proper inspection. The machinery of inspection is not properly organized in this 
country. To do such inspection thoroughly would require a small army of trained inspec- 
tors (entomologists and pathologists) distributed at at least a dozen different ports of entry, 
all subject to one efficient central inspection bureau. Universities are not turning out men 
fast enough to meet the demands for this sort of work, and at the present time there are 
not men available in this country to carry out properly any such system of inspection, 
important as it is to have it instituted speedily, nor even to meet the ordinary requirements 
of pathological research. 
As time goes on undoubtedly strict inspections will be required in all highly civilized 
countries, and the propagators and distributors of trees, shrubs, herbs, tubers, bulbs, seeds, 
etc., will be required to give some sort of guarantee as to where the plants were grown and 
under what conditions. Then seedsmen will not be permitted to sell seeds raised in infected 
districts and often harvested from infected plants, simply because it is convenient for 
them to do so, nor will nurserymen be allowed to sell stock known to be infected, for no 
better reason than simply because they have a large quantity on hand and wish to dispose 
of it. Meanwhile, in the absence of proper inspections, intelligent buyers will deal only 
with reliable firms, and will in addition seek for some specific assurance as to healthfulness. 
In case of large orders a visit to the plantations themselves before the trees are dug, or the 
seeds harvested, might occasionally prevent much subsequent vexation and loss. 
Some propagators of seeds and plants appear to be entirely indifferent to the welfare 
of the community, sometimes distributing things known to be infected, and there should 
be a severe law for such people.* The greater number, however, undoubtedly trespass 
through ignorance, and we can not hope for a general improvement of the seed and plant 
trade in these particulars until a knowledge of these diseases, particularly information as to 
their dangerous nature and the exact methods of their dissemination, is broadcasted through 
the trade, and made effective through the demands of the buyers for healthy stock. The 
buyer must be on his guard continually. He knows theundesirability of cocklebur, ragweed, 
and thistles, but in most cases he has not yet come to realize the greater undesirability of 
*The San José scale was disseminated through the eastern United States by nurserymen of this type. 
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