July 2\, 1S97.] 



Garden and Forest. 



281 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY EY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1897. 

 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — Legislation Against Plant Pests 2 S r 



Rev. G. H. Engfeheart 282 



The Landscape-gardener and tiis Work ..O..C. Simonds 282 



The Madrofla at'Ukiah Carl Purdy. 283 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter. ) W. Watson. 283 



New or Little-known Plants : — Rhamnus occidentalis. (With figure). . C. S. S. 2S4 

 An Undescribed Antennaria from New England. 



Professor Merriti /.. Fcrnald. 2S4 

 Cultural Department: — Herbaceous Perennial Plants in Flower. 



Robert Cameron. 284 



Notes on Pelargoniums T. D. Hatfield. 2o<". 



Greenhouse Notes E. O. Orpet. 286 



Ipomoea pandurata G. W Olz: er. 287 



Notes on Carnations W. N. Craig. 2S7 



For Winter Flowers T. D H. 28S 



Correspondence :— The Sycamore Blight F. L. Olmsted, Jr. 28S 



Notes on Hardy Plants L. C. L Jordan. 288 



Flowery Bvwavs Fanny Copley Seavey. 2SS 



The Cost of City Parks Arthur Ogd, • Glees. 288 



Recent Publications 7. 289 



Notes 290 



Illustration : — Rhamnus occidentalis, Fig. 36 2S5 



Legislation Against Plant Pests. 



THE brown-tail moth is not a rare insect, and it has 

 been known to entomologists for many years as 

 Liparis (or Porthesia) chrysorrhoea. It has never been 

 known in America, however, until the spring of the present 

 year, when it was detected in Somerville, Massachusetts, 

 and since it is almost as omnivorous and destructive as the 

 gypsy-moth, to which it is closely akin, the discovery of 

 the new immigrant caused something of a panic. The 

 Governor of the state wrote a special message of warning, 

 and about a month ago a law was approved which aims to 

 compel local authorities to take active measures for its 

 suppression. The law provides that whenever this pest 

 shall be discovered in a city or town of Massachusetts the 

 local government shall take immediate steps to destroy it 

 and prevent its spread. If they are in doubt as to the 

 identity of the insect they shall notify the Board of Agri- 

 culture, which Board thereupon must inspect the region 

 and supply printed directions setting forth the most ap- 

 proved methods for the confinement and extinction of the 

 insect. Owners and managers of infested premises, as 

 well as mayors and aldermen and selectmen of infested 

 towns and cities, who neglect or refuse to comply with the 

 requirements of the act are subject to fine or imprison- 

 ment. If this moth is still confined to a small section of 

 the state the effort to suppress it may not be utterly hope- 

 less. But it may have been half a dozen years ago when 

 it was imported, and further examination may show that it 

 has been widely distributed, so that we ought not to be too 

 sanguine about its utter extermination. 



But, whatever the merits of this particular law against 

 this one pest, it is certainly worth while to discuss the 

 general principles upon which legislation against insects 

 and fungi injurious to vegetation ought to be based. We 

 legislate against contagious diseases of man by quarantine, 

 by enforced vaccination and by other sanitary regulations. 

 We have laws for stamping out infection among domestic 

 animals. Almost every state in the Union makes it a mis- 

 demeanor for a landholder to allow noxious weeds, like the 

 Canada Thistle, for example, to go to seed on his premises. 

 The principle which underlies all these laws is the same as 



that which holds the owner of a Cranberry-bog in New 

 Jersey responsible for the scald on his plants, and which 

 in a dozen states compels the destruction of Peach-trees 

 affected with the yellows, or Plum-trees with the black- 

 knot. The assumption is that no man has a right to 

 permit his premises to be a breeding-ground for pests 

 which will bring loss upon his neighbors, when by due 

 diligence he can prevent this. If the trouble does not come 

 from his own carelessness it is right that the state should 

 pay him, as it pays for the destruction of diseased cattle. 



But if we admit that legislation against plant pests is jus- 

 tified on this ground, our laws may only be effective to a 

 limited extent. If New York enacts and attempts to enforce 

 a law against the San Jose scale, for example, what is to 

 prevent an invasion of these insects from adjoining states 

 where there is no restriction upon its spread ? To meet 

 such a difficulty Federal legislation has been invoked, and 

 this might be effective with state cooperation as it was 

 when Congress authorized the Department of Agriculture 

 to eradicate pleuro-pneumonia by slaughtering cattle and 

 paying for them what it saw fit. Massachusetts three years 

 ago asked the General Government for an appropriation of 

 $100,003 to aid in exterminating the gypsy-moth, but under 

 our system of government such assistance can hardly be 

 hoped for, and unless, therefore, the states all unite in the 

 enactment of similar laws, any attempt of a single state to 

 compel its inhabitants to fight a moth or a fungus is as 

 likely to prove ineffective as was the Papal bull against the 

 comet. Again, state laws against the enemies of plants, 

 however well considered, are liable to failure in execution, 

 because of a sluggish public opinion that refuses to enforce 

 them. Noxious weeds go to seed by every wayside in 

 spite of legislation and governments. Locusts continue to 

 ravage the western states, although their statute books order 

 farmers to plow the land where these insects have laid their 

 eggs. Over and over again juries have failed to convict 

 peach growers when it had been proved that they refused 

 to burn trees affected by the deadly yellows. This is sim- 

 ply because there is not a public sentiment behind the law 

 strong enough to compel its enforcement. The canker- 

 worm and tent-caterpillar have probably done ten times as 

 much injury in eastern Massachusetts as the gypsy-moth, 

 but a public sentiment which is not strong enough to arouse 

 the people to a destruction of these pests would not enforce 

 a law leveled specially against them. 



But it does not follow that because the enforcement of a 

 law is not certain, it is therefore unwise to enact it. It is 

 true that habitual disobedience to any law breeds, to a cer- 

 tain extent, contempt for all laws, but it is also true that the 

 expression of the intelligence of a commonwealth on its 

 statute books is of itself an educating force. Laws against 

 forest fires, for instance, help to instruct people who have 

 never given the subject attention as to the enormous 

 amount of property they sweep away. In the mean time 

 nothing should be neglected which helps to disseminate 

 knowledge of plant pests and their ways. It has been esti- 

 mated that a million and a half of dollars every day would 

 not pay for the losses inflicted upon agriculture throughout 

 the United States from insects and fungous diseases. It 

 matters little whether the exact figure is larger or smaller 

 than this. It is sufficient to know. that the tax upon the 

 productive resources of the country from these sources is 

 enormous. If we are not yet prepared to enforce whole- 

 some laws to prevent this loss, we certainly ought to do 

 everything possible toward creating a sentiment which 

 will enforce them. Here are matters which should be sub- 

 jects of study in the common schools to begin with, as 

 well as in the agricultural colleges and bulletins from our 

 experiment stations and in farmers' institutes. A civilized 

 people cannot afford to go blundering on as we are doing 

 now, when united action would protect us from a great 

 portion of this loss. When we are confronted again by 

 some new enemy like this moth from Europe there ought 

 to be sharp eyed boys and girls in every state who would 

 detect it at once, and their fathers should have machinery 



