78 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



It has taken a good many years to crystallize public sentiment 

 where it recognizes the principles we have here set forth. Public 

 sentiment is the barometer recording the things the people want 

 done. It usually manifests itself through those agencies which 

 the people set up to represent them, namely, their legislative bodies. 

 Ten years ago a number of states had begun legislation with the 

 object of protecting themselves against outside enemies in the 

 shape of insects or diseases or both. Even earlier there was legis- 

 lation such as the peach yellow laws, plum black knot law, San 

 Jose scale law, and other laws. 



Nursery inspection came into existence, so that gradually there 

 grew in the public mind the demand for protection against plant 

 enemies that were coming to us each year from foreign countries. 

 Six years ago pressure for some Federal action in the matter of 

 meeting these alien foes became so great that congressional action 

 was finally secured, resulting in the passage of the Federal Plant 

 Quarantine Act. This law^ went into effect in 1912. The law, 

 like many others of similar nature, was a compromise. It repre- 

 sented on the one hand the views of a group of specialists who had 

 been face to face with a series of problems of a most serious nature, 

 which unrestricted commercial plant importations had thrust 

 upon the country. On the other hand, there was a coterie of men 

 who had large commercial interests at stake and who did not look 

 with favor on any steps that might tend to interfere with what they 

 considered their legitimate business operations. 



The Plant Quarantine Act carried with it the authority for the 

 appointment of a Board by the Secretary of Agriculture, to be 

 known as the Federal Horticultural Board. The Act further pro- 

 vided that the Board should be made up of representatives from 

 each of the large bureaus in the Department interested in plants, 

 namely, the Bureau of Entomology, the Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 and the Bureau of Forestry. Fortunately the Act gave wide dis- 

 cretionary power to the Secretary of Agriculture, which through 

 him is vested in the Board. I am not a member of the Board, 

 therefore I may be permitted to speak with the freedom of one 

 who has watched its work and the effects of what it has done on 

 certain agricultural and horticultural activities in which I have 

 long been interested. 



