The speed of air transport adds to the problems of pest exclusion 
work, Each year, larger proportions of animal and plant shipments are 
air-borne. Cargo ships plowing across an ocean may take several weeks, 
allowing time for an animal to develop symptoms of almost any disease it 
could have contracted, so that control measures can be begun. But airflight 
outruns the incubation period of these diseases, and therefore quarantine 
stations carry a heavier burden of responsibility when air transportation 
is used, Similarly, a ship-crossing may be longer than the life span of 
certain insects that damage crops. But by plane, by egg-laying insect 
makes port so swiftly that it can be alive and ready to loose destruction. 
Prospective Help 
This country’s scientific knowledge, applied in practical ways, is the 
firm foundation of its agricultural quarantine inspection system, 
Knowledge of plant and animal pests and diseases has been accumulat- 
ing through research for nearly a century and is counted on to continue 
strengthening our pest defense. Among the ways in which research of the 
future may make this work simpler, quicker, more effective are advances 
such as these: finding a practical quarantine treatment for ridding plants 
of disease without harming the plants, comparable to the methyl bromide 
treatment for killing insects; finding a practical way to fumigate soil that 
would destroy the elusive golden nematode and other soil-borne pests 
without injuring plants; finding a protective or curative treatment for such 
dreaded animal plagues as foot-and-mouth disease, 
Research also may be expected to continue devising management 
practices that protect shipments from becoming hide-outs for pests. 
Insect-resistant packaging is one research line attracting attention. 
Teamwork is as essential as research to future success in halting 
pest travels. In the nineteenth century, the United States recognized that 
individuals or States alone could not halt roving agricultural pests; and the 
Nation as a whole began developing its inspection-quarantine system to 
form a strong continental barrier. In our twentieth century, the whole 
world is having to draw together through international conferences and 
scientific teamwork to minimize the threat of interchanging agricultural 
pests. Without such efforts, no country, however remote, can hope to keep 
its agricultural pests to itself or to escape acquiring new ones, 
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