There is, however, included in subsequent pages of this circular, drafted 

 for the information of the conference, a discussion of a number of subjects which 

 have a direct bearing on Quarantine 37 and its administration. 



STEPS EEADIHG TO THE OOHPEBEKCE. 



Such a conference as the one now called has been under consideration for 

 a long time, and, in fact, was suggested by the Chairman Of the Federal Horticul- 

 tural Board in August, 1919, in his address before the Society of American Flor- 

 ists and Ornamental Horticulturists at its annual session of that year in Detroit, 

 as indicated by the following extracts taken from the shorthand report of the con- 

 vention published in the American Florist and in other florist journals: 



We are perfectly willing to correct anything in the 

 quarantine that is unnecessary, and the bulb matter may be 

 one of those. 



We will be glad to h?.ve your bulb men come in committee 

 or conference at any time at Washington. We would like to go 

 over the whole subject of bulbs because if there is any weak 

 spot in the quarantine it. is in the matter of bulbs. 



In the same connection, referring to the subject of orchids, he said: 



We will be glad to receive a delegation with whom we 

 will go over that matter. As to orchids, we acted on 

 information from our expert advisers. If there has been 

 a mistake there it can he corrected. 



This quarantine is not necessarily final, but it is 

 final in my judgment as to the main lines or recommendations. 



The orchid interests, or rather a faction of it, after various failures to 

 reach an agreement with the opposing faction, asked for a conference, which was 

 promptly granted. The division of opinion continued at this conference, fully 

 half of the attendance strongly supporting the quarantine features as they stood 

 and the other half objecting to them, but practically all admitted in the end that 

 under the provisions for entry of necessary propagating stock, production of 

 orchids from seed or otherwise in this country was entirely possible. There 

 seemed to be no justification, therefore, for any change in the orchid item. 



Ho action by the bulb interests was, or has been, talcen as to the suggested 

 conference. The Board, however, held two conferences in September, 1919, with the 

 bulb experts if the Bureau of Plant Industry of this Department and, while the 

 general feeling was that no change in the quarantine as to this item was necessary 

 or desirable, at the request of the Board, a call for a public conference was 

 drafted by the Bureau if Plant Industry- This call was not immediately issued 

 and in the meantime the information ccming to the Board from various sources in- 

 dicated a lack of public interest in the subject. In other words, the possibility 



