The Garden Magazine 



eSzE^m 



Something Wrong in the Works? 



Who and What Are Really Behind 

 Quarantine 37? 



THE Federal Horticultural Board keeps 

 reiterating that the need of greater re- 

 strictions on plant importations is be- 

 ing urged upon it by "associations re- 

 presenting State Departments of Agriculture. 

 State nursery inspectors, and official entomolog- 

 ists and plant pathologists of the United States"; 

 and further that "similar requests have been re- 

 ceived from National and State Forestry, Hor- 

 ticultural, and other Associations, and from many 

 leading nurserymen and florists." It is easy to 

 make general assertions, and to give them a sem- 

 blance of weight; but up to the present writing 

 the Federal Horticultural Board has not seen fit 

 to specifically enumerate these associations, nor 

 to give the names of the many "leading nursery- 

 men and florists." 



That some associations have been led to in- 

 dorse the proposed Quarantine is true. That a 

 few nurserymen and florists, seeing in it an op- 

 portunity to corner a market, are giving it prac- 

 tical support is also true.. One active supporter, 

 at all events, is reported as having placed hurry 

 orders abroad for a large supply of certain ever- 

 greens which are to be delivered prior to June I. 



The Federal Horticultural Board proceeds 

 under an act of Congress in 1912 authorizing the 

 Department of Agriculture to take steps from 

 time to time in order to give protection against 

 the importation of diseased or insect infested 

 plants. The Secretary of Agriculture, empow- 

 ered by this act, delegated his authority to a 

 board now known as the Federal Horticultural 

 Board. This Board is composed exclusively of 

 entomologists having no acquaintance whatever 

 with the interests, needs, and scope of the garden- 

 ing activities of the country. 



Originally this board did have in its make-up 

 at least one man who knew a good deal about 

 plants, a trained gardener of much experience 

 and ability — perhaps of too much ! At all events, 

 he was removed and another, a microscopical, 

 laboratorical, bug-chaser substituted. 



As a special advisor to the Secretary of Agricul- 

 ture there stands a gentleman whose life work has 

 been that of plant pathologist — in time he be- 

 came chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry, then 

 Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, and then 

 Dean of a college of agriculture — a position which 

 he held for a short time only — and, resigning, re- 

 turned to Washington where a special appoint- 

 ment was given him in his old department. Be- 

 cause he spent a few of his earlier years in the 

 West in the cultivation of florists' plants, he 

 stands before certain officials as the expert repre- 



sentative for the interests whose welfare is so 

 threatened by Quarantine 37. 



This gentleman has been looked upon by the 

 florists and the nurserymen with friendly regard 

 for many years; and it was this gentleman who, 

 at a public meeting of horticulturists in Boston 

 on February 15th, when very much excited on 

 being questioned as to his endorsement of the 

 Federal Horticultural Board's assertions, startled 

 his hearers by announcing that, no matter how 

 many petitions were sent to the Secretary of Agricul- 

 ture, the order would go through and would stand 

 forever! 



Incidentally it is interesting to observe that 

 this gentleman is to be entrusted with the plant 

 "delousary" already established at Washington 

 and where any plant material in the future must 

 be taken, disinfected, and finally, if in his judg- 

 ment it is safe to do so, liberated to its owner. 

 Can it be possible that unless this elaborate mach- 

 inery is kept going this 

 estimable gentleman 

 will find himself with- 

 out a job? 



It is true that Dr. 

 Galloway does not en- 

 tirely indorse the opin- 

 ion of the Federal Hor- 

 ticultural Board when 

 it asserts that "the ex- 

 perts of this department 

 are convinced that it 

 will be possible very 

 promptly to produce in 

 this country all the 

 plants prohibited by 

 this quarantine, and 

 this opinion has been 

 indorsed by leading 

 nurserymen and flo- 

 rists, " for at the Boston 

 meeting he categori- 

 cally denied that; said 

 he would prefer to sub- 

 stitute "nearly all." 



Orchid lovers and 

 others who are fond of 

 the many ornamental 

 plants that adorn their Did you say I was treading on 

 greenhouses will be in- anybody's toes? 



terested to learn that 



this gentleman thinks that all such plants are a 

 "mere bagatelle." 



As to the assertion of the board that its opinion 

 has been indorsed by leading nurserymen and 

 florists it might be pertinent to ask how to the 

 Board's view a "leader" qualifies? The Ameri- 

 can Association of Nurserymen, the Society of 

 American Florists, the Nurserymens' Associations 



109 



of New England, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, 

 and New Jersey, the Minnesota State Horticul- 

 tural Society, a majority of the Florists' Clubs, 

 members of the American Peony Society, of the 

 American Rose Society, the Horticultural Society 

 of New York, and indeed, practically all the 

 associations of florists and nurserymen and work- 

 ers concerned with ornamental plants in that part 

 of the country where the fine art of gardening has 

 attained its real perfection, and where it is prac- 

 tised on a comprehensive scale, are solidly opposed 

 to Quarantine 37. 



The Federal Horticultural Board gives much 

 weight to the result of a hearing conducted by the 

 Department of Agriculture on Ma}' 28, 1918. It 

 is a fact that this meeting was attended by repre- 

 sentative and leading nurserymen and florists, 

 but also by a preponderating number of entomo- 

 logists and bug chasers; and the opinion of the 

 board as decided at that meeting was taken, not 

 by weight of "leading" importance of representa- 

 tives present, but by mere bulk or numbers. 



The order is confiscatory, and destructive to 

 the nursery trade of the East; and it has been 

 stated by an authoritative representative that 

 the estimated loss to business through these re- 

 strictions may be as much as 40%. 



The order is injurious to American Horticulture 

 generally through cutting off access to the world's 

 supply of plants and at a time when the people 

 of the country are turning more definitely, assidu- 

 ously, and enthusiastically to gardening than ever 

 before in the history of the country. 



The order is ineffective in that it cannot guar- 

 antee the immunity which it is supposed to produce 

 since hemp rope, jute, and thousands of bales of 

 peat moss litter and such like material are still 

 likely to bring in insects in the future just as they 

 have done in the past. 



The order attempts more than the Plant Quar- 

 antine Act authorizes in that it fails to specify. 

 Section seven of the Plant Quarantine Act reads: 

 "THAT, whenever, in order to prevent the intro- 

 duction into the United States of any tree, plant, 

 or fruit disease or of any injurious insect, new to 

 or not heretofore widely prevalent or distributed 

 within and throughout the United States, the 

 Secretary of Agriculture shall determine that it 

 is necessary to forbid the importation into the 

 United States of any class of nursery stock or of 

 any other class of plants, fruits, vegetables, roots, 

 bulbs, seeds, or other plant products from a coun- 

 try or locality where such disease or insect infesta- 

 tion exists, he shall promulgate such determina- 

 tion, specifying the country or locality and the 

 class of n u rsery stock or other class of plants, fruits, 

 vegetables, roots, bulbs, seeds or other plant pro- 

 ducts which, in his opinion, should be excluded." 



