DANGER OF INTKODUCTION FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 61 



pests from foreign countries, and unfortunately at the present time 

 there is no effective general law which provides for the inspection of 

 nursery stock or other products, coming into the country, on which 

 these insects are likely to be transported. Most of the States have 

 nursery inspection laws which are enforced with special reference 

 to preventing the introduction and spread within the State of the San 

 Jose scale and other dangerous^ injurious insect pests. Most of 

 these laws are well enforced, and the officials in charge have been 

 provided with sufficient funds to carry on the work. The ports of 

 entry, which are controlled by the United States Government, have 

 not come under the jvu-isdiction of the State officials, and when inspec- 

 tions were made of stock coming to the United States from foreign 

 countries, they have been carried on at the point of destination. 

 Little attention was given to this feature of niu'sery inspection work 

 until during the winter of 1909 discovery was made by the inspectors 

 working imder the direction of the commissioner of agriculture of 

 New York that seedling nursery stock imported from France was 

 being received at various nurseries in the State, which in many cases 

 bore webs containing hibernating caterpillars of the brown-tail moth. 

 This matter was given immediate attention, and the inspectors in the 

 different States were cautioned, both by the commissioner of agricul- 

 ture of New York and the Chief of the Bureau of Entomology at 

 Washington, to be on the lookout for such stock. As a result of 

 this warning and of the arrangements made by the Bureau of Ento- 

 mology with the custom-house officials, notice was sent to inspectors 

 in all of the States of the arrival of any nursery stock shipments in 

 this country, so that an inspection could be made as soon as the stock 

 reached its destination. Most of the States followed up the ship- 

 ments energetically, and carefully inspected them, but in a few 

 where no funds were available for doing the work the local inspector 

 was deputized by the Biu-eau of Entomology to examine the importa- 

 tions and the work was paid for out of the appropriation for prevent- 

 ing the spread of moths which had been made for carrying out the 

 campaign in New England. 



At the close of the season it was foimd that brown-tail moths 

 had been found in shipments of stock that had been received in 15 

 different States, viz, Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Ken- 

 tucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, 

 New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In New York 

 State alone over 7,000 webs were found and destroyed. A single 

 egg cluster of the gipsy moth was foimd in a shipment received 

 in Ohio. 



A bill (H. R. 23252, 61st Congress, 2d Session) "To provide for the 

 introduction of foreign nursery stock by permit only, and to authorize 

 the Secretary of Agriculture to establish a quarantine against the 



