I10 
the fungus has developed, or the insect has hatched from 
the egg and it is much easier to detect the enemy. 
In establishing control of imported plants we meet, however, 
with the difficulty that almost every country has its own system 
of controlling the imports and a great number of very different 
laws and regulations are met with. The way in which these 
laws are carried out are also different, but on this point, as well 
as on the effect of the laws, very little information is published. 
It would be useful if there were more exchange of opinions 
about these questions between the phytopathologists in different 
countries, and, without making a definite proposal to the Con- 
gress, I should like to emphasize the desirability of such an 
interchange of opinions between the competent men in different 
countries as to the way in which the laws against the intro- 
duction of disease are carried out and as to the effect of these 
laws. 
Professor P. Carmopy (Director of Agriculture, Trinidad): 
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen—TI think that the subject which 
has been introduced so ably by Mr. Rogers is one which can 
be suitably dealt with at this Congress. We have this advan- 
tage, that we are able to obtain personal knowledge of each 
other at these Congresses, and that by this means we are able 
to ascertain what is being done in other countries in connection 
with plant diseases. The chief trouble, I think, which con- 
fronts anyone importing plants from any other country is to 
know what are the conditions and the regulations in that 
country, and to know how they deal there with plant diseases, 
or whether they are entirely ignorant of them. That is the 
one question, I think, that precedes every other. Let me 
assume, for example, that I want to import sugar canes into 
Trinidad. If I sent to my friend, Dr. van Hall, for these sugar 
canes, and he sent me a certificate that there was no disease 
in the district from which these canes were taken, and that 
they suffered from no special diseases of the sugar cane, I 
should not have the slightest hesitation in admitting these into 
our colony, perhaps entirely without fumigation, although 
sometimes we may protect ourselves by that in certain cases. 
But if the Director of Agriculture in some little-known part of 
the world were to do the same, and sent me a certificate similar 
to the one supplied by Dr. van Hall, I should want to know 
first of all whether he was competent to give a certificate, or 
whether any preventive measures taken at the place of origin 
were efficient. After attending these Congresses and ex- 
changing subsequently, as we do, our publications not only 
among the Departments of Agriculture in the British Empire, 
but very largely also outside—in fact, with almost all the 
Departments of Agriculture throughout the world—we are 
