No. 4.] STATE NUBSERY INSPECTOli. 233 



which would permit the appointment of more deputies, and 

 a consequent larger appropriation, is a question hardly with- 

 in the province of the inspector to decide. 



The San Jose scale has l^een unusually plentiful in the 

 nurseries this year, and in nearly every case this has been 

 due to one of tAvo causes. Much of the infested stock was 

 bought last spring from other States, and bore certificates of 

 inspection. This of itself is a comment on the inspection 

 laws of the States concerned, or possibly on the quality of 

 the inspectors of those States. The other cause of infesta- 

 tion is the presence of the scale on trees or shrubbery in or 

 near the nursery. The inspection law gives the inspector 

 no authority as regards any trees or plants not for sale, and 

 a nursery may be planted in the midst of a badly infested 

 orchard over which he has no control. In one case a nursery 

 is on three sides of a house lot the trees on which are dying 

 from the San Jose scale, and, in consequence, each year the 

 stock nearest that lot is badly infested. The owners of the 

 nursery are aware of the conditions, and have done every- 

 thing in their power to induce the owner of the lot to 

 remove the infested trees, but in vain. 



It is not one of the duties of the inspector to examine the 

 surroundings of a nursery, but in order to understand local 

 conditions this has been done as far as possible ; and thirty 

 places are now known where nurseries are annually exposed 

 to infestation either from trees growing in the nursery itself 

 or near by. So long as this continues we may expect to 

 find infested stock, which must be discovered and removed 

 each year. It is the practice of the inspectors to notify the 

 owner of the nursery of surrounding conditions as they dis- 

 cover them, and this has done much good in some cases ; 

 but too often, as has already been stated, there was nothing 

 which could be done to improve the conditions. 



The inspection season this year was a great contrast to 

 that of 1904, as rain interrupted the work every week, while 

 living expenses (though not salaries) went on. As a result, 

 the appropriation was so nearly expended that when a new 

 nursery was learned of just after the close of the work there 

 was not money enough left to make an inspection of it, and 



