PROTECTING THE UNITED STATES FROM PLANT PESTS 



215 



PROTECTING CUCURBITS FROM ATTACK BY MELON FLIES 



No effective control of this pest is possible except to enclose the young fruits in a paper 

 sack immediately after the bloom has been fertilized. The illustration shows this method as 

 employed by Oriental market gardeners in Hawaii. 



the European corn-borer all occurred 

 during the last years of the effort to se- 

 cure this legislation and before it was 

 actually enacted, although the fact of the 

 entry and establishment of these pests 

 was not determined until several years 

 later. 



The Plant Quarantine Act of 1912 was 

 the final outcome of this 14-year effort 

 to secure authority to protect the United 

 States, so far as possible, from further 

 entry of plant pests. In connection with 

 broad quarantine and regulatory powers, 

 this act makes specific provision for the 

 regulation of the entry of nursery stock 

 and other plants. 



ADEQUATE CONTROL BY INSPECTION AND 

 CERTIFICATION PROVES IMPOSSIBLE 



During the first seven years of the en- 

 forcement of the act an effort was made 

 to prevent the entry of new plant pests 

 by relying as safeguards on foreign in- 



spection and certification. These were 

 made in the countries of export by the 

 most expert officials available, and as an 

 additional safeguard provision was made 

 for reinspection of these importations at 

 destination in this country, either by 

 Federal or by State inspectors. This re- 

 inspection has given us a fairly just ap- 

 preciation of the continuing risk with the 

 entry of such inspected and certified 

 plants. 



It is true that under this system, in 

 which the best skill both abroad and at 

 home was employed, much improvement 

 was made in the health status of the im- 

 ported plants, and infection was undoubt- 

 edly reduced to probably as near a mini- 

 mum as is humanly possible. 



The record, however, of the seven years 

 of interceptions of plant pests in connec- 

 tion with imported plants indicates very 

 clearly that in spite of these safeguards 

 numbers of injurious insects and plant 



