January 2, 1919. 



The Florists^ Review 



17 



r^'[iS^JtV!i!!iS^t^[^l^[.«>yiiS/J[^[^li^ 



A PAGE ABOUT PLANT IMPORTS 



sir/svir)«iiri«virrsvir7Svir7Svir/SYir/svir^rrsvir7saii?iiy^ 



WHO WANT QUARANTINE? 



No Claim of Trade Demand. 



While certain members of the trade 

 favor the approaching plant quaran- 

 tine, it seems clear that they must be 

 few in number, because the Federal Hor- 

 ticultural Board, in its annual report, 

 surely would have mentioned the fact 

 had it felt that the approaching quar- 

 antine had any support in the trade. 

 Of the demand for the quarantine the 

 board's chairman, C. L. Marlatt, has the 

 following to say in his annual report: 



"The need of additional restrictions 

 or prohibitions, particularly • with re- 

 spect to the entry of certain classes of 

 nursery stock and other plants and seeds 

 on account of exceptional risks involved, 

 has been under consideration by the 

 Federal Horticultural Board for some 

 time. This consideration has had re- 

 lation particularly to (1) plants im- 

 ported with earth about the roots or 

 'balled' plants and (2) plants and seeds 

 of all kinds for propagation from little 

 known or little explored countries. The 

 large risk from importations of these 

 two classes of plants comes from the 

 impossibility of properly inspecting 

 plants with earth or of disinfecting the 

 attached earth; and from the dangers 

 which can not be foreseen with respect 

 to plants coming from regions where 

 plant enemies — insect and disease — 

 have been studied very meagerly or not 

 at all. Inspection of such material is 

 necessarily in the blind, and the dis- 

 covery of infesting insects, particularly 

 if hidden in bark or wood, or of evi- 

 dence of disease, is largely a matter of 

 chance. The inspection and disinfec- 

 tion of both of these classes of plants 

 as a condition of entry, therefore, is 

 a very imperfect safeguard. 



"There has further developed 

 throughout the country a wide interest 

 in this subject, which has manifested 



itself in numerous requests for greater 

 restriction on plant imports from official 

 bodies representing the state depart- 

 ments of agriculture, the inspection of- 

 ficials of the states, entomological and 

 phytopathological associations, forestry 

 associations, etc. 



' ' Scientific, ' ' not Practical 



"As a basis for such needed addition- 

 al quarantine restrictions a public hear- 

 ing was conducted at this department 

 May 28, 1918, at which the whole sub- 

 ject was fully discussed with all of 

 the interests concerned, including, in 

 addition to those enumerated, both the 

 importing nurserymen and seedsmen, 

 as well as the producing nurserymen of 

 the United States." 



The report stops right there; there is 

 no claim of trade support. 



SPARED ALL THESE DANGERS! 



Report of Federal Inspector. 



The Federal Horticultural Board ex- 

 ists for the purpose of protecting the 

 agriculture and arboriculture of the 

 United States from destruction by the 

 hunnish hordes of European plant pests 

 — for that and to provide jobs for a 

 lot of gents most of whom were or are 

 addressed as "Professor." It is of 

 course necessary to justify the board's 

 existence and this is what it did, with 

 state assistance, in the year ended June 

 30, 1918, in the way of inspecting im- 

 ported nursery stock, over 13,000 cases 

 of it: 



"As the result of state and federal 

 inspection of imported nursery stock 

 and other imported plants and plant 

 products during the fiscal year, some 280 

 different species of insects were inter- 

 cepted, including seven nests of the 

 brown-tail moth and three egg masses 

 of the gipsy moth from France; six 

 pupae of the sorrel cutworm on miscel- 



laneous stock from France, and one on 

 azaleas from Belgium; larvae of the 

 gold-tail moth on rhododendrons, labur- 

 nums, roses, and Japanese maples from 

 Holland and on Cerasus avium from 

 France; the lesser bulb fly in bulbs from 

 Holland, nests of the fruit-tree pierid 

 in six shipments of deciduous fruit-tree 

 seedlings from France, numerous scale 

 insects and ants from various quarters 

 of the globe. 



One on the Nurserymen. 



"During the same period, 218 plant 

 diseases were intercepted and identified 

 on imported material. These organisms 

 occurred on 115 different host plants. 

 Three attempts were made to import, 

 respectively, grapefruit, mandarin or- 

 ange, and round orange, found to be 

 affected with citrus canker. All were 

 from the vicinity of Canton, China. 



"With respect to the assurance by 

 nurserymen that apple stocks from 

 France are very free from crown gall, 

 it is interesting to note that every 

 tree of a shipment of 1,009 apple stocks 

 received by the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture from France was 

 rejected because it was affected with a 

 hairy root form of crown gall." 



The above is from the annual report 

 of the board. 



The seriousness of the situation and 

 the importance of the results accom- 

 plished are all in the point of view. 



OFF YEAR'S IMPORTS OF PLANTS. 



The table at the foot of this page 

 gives the country of origin and the 

 classes of plants imported during the 

 year ending June 30, 1918. It should be 

 remembered that the plant imports in 

 that fiscal year were only a little more 

 than one-fifth the number of cases that 

 came in the second season before. 



Practically all this will be cut off by 

 the approaching quarantine. 



..:^tk_. -1. i 



