THE POTATO QUARANTINE. 7 
The use of foreign sacks which had contained infected potatoes 
is a third means of spreading disease to American potatoes. Great 
numbers of these sacks are gathered up through secondhand dealers 
and sold in New York, Maine, and other producing centers for use in 
shipping domestic potatoes. It has not been the practice to sterilize 
these sacks, though a treatment with steam would render them safe. 
The conclusion reached after consideration of the possibility of the 
spread of disease through garbage, seed potatoes, and reused sacks 
was that it will be impossible to prevent the permanent establishment 
in the United States of any parasitic disease common on imported 
potatoes. 
IS THE POWDERY SCAB DANGESOUS? 
The Federal Horticultural Board was compelled to decide promptly 
whether the best policy for the country would be to treat powdery 
scab as a disease of minor importance and make no restrictions on 
importations from infected countries, recognizing as inevitable that 
the disease would soon become common and widely distributed in the 
United States, or whether it should be considered sufficiently danger- 
ous to warrant exclusion measures. In deciding this important 
point all available information was secured. Advice was sought 
from the plant pathologists in the several State experiment stations, 
all foreign publications on the subject were consulted, and the advice 
of representatives of foreign governments was taken through corre- 
spondence and at a public hearing held in conformity with the plant 
quarantine act on December 18, 1913. This hearing was attended 
by a large number of plant pathologists and other State officials, by 
representatives of farmers' organizations and commercial bodies, and 
by interested individuals. The thousands of letters, petitions, and tele- 
grams received by the board showed that the potato growers of the 
country are no longer apathetic on the question of potato diseases. 
The advice of the foreign representatives was to the general effect 
that European potatoes had been imported in large quantities for 
many years; consequently, that if powdery scab were communicable 
it must be common in the United States, but overlooked, in which 
event a quarantine would not be lawful under the plant quarantine 
act. Further, that if powdery scab had not already become estab- 
lished, this fact should be considered as evidence that no danger 
exists. 
It was also represented that powdery scab is a disease of such 
minor importance that the interruption of trade by a quarantine 
was not justified, and that, if introduced, it could be controlled by 
using no infected tubers for planting and by discontinuing the use of 
infected land for growmg potatoes. The evidence on each of these 
points and on other phases considered is summarized later. 
