18 Joint Bulletin 1 



brown creeper a few times in December, a shrike twice in January, and 

 on January 9, I heard an incomplete song of a purple finch. I have 

 seen few chickadees and no nuthatches." 



A Swanton Center Report. 



Miss Lelia E. Honsinger of Swanton Center says: "We have blue 

 jays, snow-buntings and chickadees, but have never seen a bird on the 

 suet basket. Food, no doubt, has been abundant, owing to the absence 

 of deep snow. In early winter a hairy woodpecker was a frequent 

 visitor. Have neither seen nor heard a woodpecker this month (Jan- 

 uary) of any variety." 



PLANT QUARANTINE LAWS. 



(abstract). 

 B. F. Lutman. 



The study of plant diseases and their prevention has passed through 

 the same stages as that of animal diseases. Some years ago we felt 

 that the best we could do for either plant or animal pests was to kill 

 them after we were bothered with them; today, we believe that it is 

 cheaper and better to prevent their spread. In this country we have 

 been slower to take such preventive measures than have the people of 

 Europe. We have finally waked up to the fact, however, that we lose 

 millions of dollars every year from plant diseases whose prevention 

 would have been easy if they had been taken in time. They made 

 their way into the country in some fashion and now we are forever 

 troubled by them. 



W^e carry out our measures for the prevention of the spread of 

 plant diseases through our state and federal quarantine laws. The 

 Vermont state law dates from 1908, amended in 1912. It provides for 

 a state nursery inspector appointed by the state commissioner of 

 agriculture, whose duties are to prevent the introduction into the state 

 of diseases, insect or fungus, on nursery stock from outside the state 

 and to inspect the nurseries inside the state. The nurseries are not 

 very large or numerous in Vermont, so the inspector's duties are chiefly 

 concerned with the trees and plants that come over our borders. He 

 gets control of these shipments through the railroad and express 

 companies. 



