-JEffiSagSBSSii^JiSL^L ** f^oCi.^ 



"SUB ROSA" 



FROM very early times the Rose has been accepted in 

 classical literature as the symbol of secrecy. A pretty 

 fancy indeed, around which much of romance and poetry 

 has been woven ; but whatever may have given rise to 

 this association it can hardly have been the premonition 

 of an idea that has justly lately been uncovered by modern re- 

 search that the Rose has been carrying with it all these years a 

 dark and solemn secret. As the State Entomologist of Maine 

 would have us believe the Rose, adopting the guise of beauty and 

 fragrance and appealing strongly to the aesthetic senses, is in 

 fact a secret monster, stalking through the land scattering 

 devastation and ruin along its path. Such, however, is the re- 

 sult to be read in Bulletin 303 of the Maine Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station. 



With the facts of the case as they are presented there is 

 probably little, if any, ground for dispute. The claim is made 

 that the pink and green potato aphis is harbored and distributed 

 solely through the sheltering branches of the Rose. This is a 

 new and terrible indictment, and Potatoes, we are told, should 

 be separated by a mile from the nearest Rose bush. The 

 bulletin goes on to state that not only is the injury to the 

 Potato crop by reason of the sucking of the juices by the aphis, 

 but the Potato mosaic disease is carried from Potato plant to 

 Potato plant by this same aphis which shelters over exclusively 

 on the too friendly Rose that offers a permanent and comfort- 

 able home during the cold winter. 



It is an interesting and curious fact that many insects as 

 well as many fungi occupy alternating hosts. Thus the wheat 

 rust migrates from Barberry to Wheat and back, and not from 

 Wheat to Wheat ; and so this louse which takes up its abode in 

 winter is found, according to this bulletin, to menace the 

 Potato fields in summer; but not alone the Potato — almost 

 everything else one might imagine as over three and one-half 

 pages of the bulletin are taken to list numerous other summer 

 hosts or "secondary food plants" running from Corn, Aspara- 

 gus, Tulips, Iris, Gladiolus, Cannas, Elm, Beet, Buckwheat, 

 Pokeweed, Clematis, numerous Brassicas, Clover, Pea, Bean, 

 Wood Sorrel, Storksbill, Citrus, Ceanothus, Hollyhock, Grape, 

 St. John's Wort, Fuchsia, Milkweed, Morning-glory, Mint, 

 Red Pepper, many Solanum relatives, including Tobacco, To- 

 mato and Egg Plant, Mullein, Catalpa, Rib Grass, Squash, and 

 the host of other things in the Sunflower family, including Let- 

 tuces, Cineraria, Aster. And all these things draw their pests 

 each summer from the criminal Rose bush. 



So the Rose bushes must go; in all events the Maine bulletin 

 urges "no better, easier way of doing this [destruction of the 

 aphis] can be suggested than the removal of Rose bushes and thus 

 destroying the primary food plant." To what a pass are we 

 coming? The entomologists may be, possibly are, quite true 

 in their statements, but their deductions may be all off, since 

 they see with the oblique vision of the specialist. Discover- 



ing the insect and its life history they attack the insect with 

 very little regard to the intricate ramifications that abound 

 elsewhere. 



One question that comes to mind, seeing that the Potato is 

 an introduced plant, not native, coming from South America to 

 the North, is: where was the louse before the Potato came here, 

 did the louse find the Potato more accommodating than other 

 previous hosts, for instance? The whole subject of insect 

 menace of our plants deserves study subjectively rather than 

 objectively. It is the objective point of view that is responsible 

 for Plant Quarantine 37 which takes no thought of anything 

 but the insect and its direct destruction. If the State of Maine 

 is justified in urging the destruction of Rose bushes throughout 

 its region because of the proportions of the Potato growing 

 industry in that state, then the State of Illinois perhaps may be 

 justified (because of the enormous investment in the florist 

 industry in that state) in demanding the destruction of Potatoes. 



Is it proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the destruction 

 of the Rose bush would starve out the potato louse? Is it not 

 possible that the Rose is made a victim because it offers special 

 facilities and in the absence of the Rose another winter host 

 may be found — the Apple, let us surmise? Aphids do infest 

 Apple trees all the year; surely then these trees must go! 

 When the twelve-lined Chestnut borer on Long Island found 

 itself deprived of the Chestnut as a host it didn't quietly die 

 of starvation but, surveying the ground, found the native Oak 

 very much to its liking. 



If the policy of demolishing and destroying host plants is 

 logically followed out, we can imagine the world very soon de- 

 void of everything but exclusively, human food plants! Doesn't 

 it suggest that there is something wrong with the whole point 

 of view if one-half of the vegetation of the earth must be 

 destroyed in order that another half of it may survive? The 

 Maine Bulletin does offer this comfort: "a thorough-going spray 

 early in September and another in June ought to reduce the 

 numbers greatly", and it is further suggested that fumigation 

 under tents or portable box cages would be more certain. 



THE BARRIERS OF QUARANTINE 



THE hearing on Plant Quarantine 37 at Washington on 

 May 15th was presided over by Secretary Wallace. Ar- 

 guments for and against any modification of the Quarantine 

 were presented, and the sessions lasted through the evening of 

 the first day and were continued into the morning of the next. 

 Speaking on behalf of the Committee on Horticultural Quaran- 

 tine as representing the Allied Interests of the Ornamental 

 Horticulturists, the Garden Clubs, Botanical Gardens, and 

 so on, Mr. J. Horace McFarland presented a lengthy argu- 

 ment urging for a reasonable Quarantine with a sympathetic 

 understanding of the needs of ornamental horticultural research 

 and plant questions. 

 The opposition to any modification whatever was strongly 



323 



