failure of this method of excluding new pests and forced the con- 
clusion on this Department, and on the plant experts of all of our 
states that the only safeguard for the future was the exclusion 
of all plant stock not absolutely essential to the agricultural, hor- 
ticultural and forestry needs of the United States.” 
In other words the chairman says that having tried to do what the 
law authorizes, and having failed, the Board decides to do something 
else; something entirely without and beyond the limits of the legal 
authority conferred by Congress. We florists cannot agree with, or sub- 
scribe to any proposition that it is necessary or effective to exclude im- 
portant classes of plants and plant products because of the alleged in- 
adequacy of inspection. If the Board’s inspectors cannot do the work ef- 
fectively, or lack equipment, then the Department can get other inspectors 
and provide the necessary equipment. 
When the Board undertakes to say what plant materials this country 
needs, and what it ought to be permitted to have, it wanders off into the 
field of economics and assumes powers it does not have and should not 
have; it has no present authority in law to decide such matters. The 
function of the Board is only to advise, and that on scientific matters re- 
quiring expert knowledge of pests and plant diseases; as such it is prop- 
erly limited in its personnel to expert advisers on entomology and plant | 
pathology. When it comes to deciding what plants and plant products 
the country requires, the florists and nurserymen can furnish expert 
knowledge on that subject which the Board does not claim to possess. 
It was not intended for this Board to decide such matters, for such ex- 
perts are prone to consider plants as hosts and carriers of diseases and 
be critical and unsympathetic toward practical horticulture. 
The Effect of Quarantine 37 on Plant Imports 
Now let us look for a moment at the effect of the present policy of 
the Board as embodied in Qu. 37—and the full results are not yet visible. 
Belgium, that shipped approximately 32,000 packages of plants and plant 
products annually prior to Qu. 37 (1934 tons in 1918) now ships less 
than 50 packages (3 tons in 1920). One little district in Holland (Bos- 
koop) that formerly shipped 35,000 cases annually, now ships less than 
300; our entire imports of plants and plant products, excluding bulbs, 
from Holland in 1920 were less than 3 per cent of our 1916 imports. (The 
Holland-America Line carried in 1916, 81,686 cases of bulbs and 39,145 
cases of nursery stock as against 14,036 cases of bulbs and 808 cases of . 
nursery stock in 1920. Total 120,000 odd for 1916 and 14,000 odd for 
1920.) France and Japan that formerly shipped hundreds of varieties 
of ornamentals, now ships none except under special permits. Out of the 
thousands of varieties and classes of plant products formerly imported, 
we can now freely import but seven, of which five are bulbs, and these 
can only be imported under permit. Of the estimated 950,000 Azalea 
indica formerly annually imported from Belgium, only an occasional 
plant is now to be seen at our national flower shows. Where are our 
Bay trees, our Araucarias? Where are our new orchids and hundreds 
of other exotics to come from? And yet the Board’s chairman says that 
Qu. 37 is not an embargo and points to the stock being allowed entry 
under special permits—which is equivalent to limiting the waters of the 
Potomac to what will come through a 12in. pipe and pointing to-.the 
great volume of water that comes through the pipe. These conditions 
result in serious injury to American trade, the elimination of the ability 
of that trade to supply garden and flower lovers and American citizens 
in general with the plants they want at prices they can afford to pay, 
5 
