80 Twenty-First Biennial Eepoet 



NuBSEEY Stock Inspection. 



In compliance ynth your request, I have to report 

 as follows on inspections of imported nursery and flor- 

 ists' stock, made in co-operation with the State Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, and with the Federal Horticultural 

 Board, by this Department of the Kentucky Experi- 

 ment Station, during the past two years, beginning July 

 7, 1914. The inspections were undertaken at the re- 

 quest of the Federal Board, which is acting under a Fed- 

 eral law requiring State inspections, but leaving the 

 work to State Inspectors whenever the states provide for 

 them. In our own case, there was no special law provid- 

 ing for such inspections, though they are very important 

 as a means of preventing the shipment to Kentucky of 

 diseased and insect-infested stock; and it was only pos- 

 sible to carry out the provisions of the Federal law by 

 making an arrangement with your Department whereby 

 the actual expenses of inspection were furnished by the 

 Department of Agriculture, the inspections being made 

 by assistants employed in this Department of the Sta- 

 tion. During the year 1914, beginning July 7, as stated, 

 we inspected 107 shipments of imported stock, in 380 

 cases containing 179,925 plants, at an expense of $191.04. 

 Most of these shipments came from Germany, Holland, 

 Belgium and France, and were, in many cases, in bad 

 condition, owing to careless packing, and also to careless- 

 ness on the part of foreign inspectors. The law had but 

 recently been enacted, and foreign shippers who had 

 not yet learned of its enactment, did not feel the need of 

 special care in excluding diseased plants. Some of the 

 eastern inspectors found a number of shipments infested 

 with such pests as brown-tail moth and gypsy moth, al- 

 ready established in some of the Atlantic States. We 

 have not found any Kentucky consignments infested with 

 pests as objectionable as these, but in a number of cases 

 plants have been found to bear scale insects and other 

 pests which might, if overlooked, have spread, to the in- 

 jury of people buying the plants. Tlie inspections have 

 had a decided effect iiymproving the quality of stock re- 

 ceived from abroad, and our inspections this year show 

 that we are now getting better florists' and nursery stock 

 from such foreign countries as still ship to us, these being 



