THE CASE AGAINST QUARANTINE NO. 37 
■ FOLLOWING are two of the statements regarding 
Federal Horticultural Board Quarantine 37 made at 
f i 'jfw -^the conference in New York, June 15, at which the 
permanent Committee on Revision was formed, as 
reported in last month’s Garden Magazine: 
By A. C. Burrage, Boston 
T HE government, people, horticulturists, and horticultural societies 
of Massachusetts recognize the fact that the United States Govern- 
ment, the United States Congress, the Department of Agriculture and 
the Federal Horticultural Board are seeking to foster and advance the 
horticulture and agriculture of the whole country, and that they are not 
trying to help any one interest at the expense of other interests. 
Massachusetts, which is suffering so much from the Gypsy Moth, the 
Brown-Tail Moth, the White Pine Rust, the Corn Borer, and other 
imported injurious plant diseases and insects, and is fearful of others 
yet to come, surely does not question the principles of Quarantine 37 
or the wisdom of the Law of 1912 under which it was lawfully issued. 
We do not protest against the law or the quarantine. Still less do we 
question the motives or intentions of those who framed the law or the 
quarantine, or those who are enforcing them. 
We do earnestly protest against what the Federal Horticultural 
Board itself calls its drastic provisions, some of which we maintain are 
wasteful, inefficient, unsound, and dangerous. We do ask that the 
regulations of the quarantine and their enforcement shall be reasonable, 
effective, and humane. We do ask that quarantine regulations of the 
Government, acting for the benefit of the whole people, shall be con- 
ducted in the right way. We ask that the United States Government, 
with all its power and wealth, shall handle the business part of this sub- 
ject in a business way, the sanitary part in a scientific way, and the 
human part in a humane way. 
Massachusetts, with limited area and a very large and dense popula- 
tion, has a negligible amount of agriculture, almost wholly confined to 
the tobacco of the plains of the Connecticut Valley, the cranberry bogs 
of the sandy Cape district, the apple orchards of the hillsides, and the 
scattered hay meadows. The wealth of Massachusetts lies in her 
people, in her institutions of learning, and in the manufacturing indus- 
tries which she maintains in spite of her remoteness from coal fields and 
raw materials and the limited waterpower within her borders. She is 
enabled to keep her people and her industries here because of the un- 
usually irregular topography of the State and its attractiveness for 
homes. The beauty of Massachusetts is in her tree-covered rocky and 
sandy hills. Massachusetts does want to protect her horticulture 
and she believes in quarantining against injurious diseases and insects; 
but she long ago found it necessary to act for the improvement of her 
horticulture, and particularly to obtain trees, shrubs, and other plants 
which would advance and extend her horticulture and beautify her 
ground, making still more attractive her cities and towns. 
Ninety years ago she established the Massachusetts Horticultural 
Society, which consists of over a thousand members and which is be- 
lieved to be truly representative of the horticultural interests of the 
State. Nearly 50 years ago, within her borders, was established the 
Arnold Arboretum, the botanical department of Harvard College; and 
here a vast amount has been done for the horticulture of the whole 
country. And Massachusetts, during a long period, has enacted many 
laws, seeking not only to improve agriculture but also to protect and 
carry forward the science of horticulture in the broadest way. 
We want protection against future danger to our horticulture and 
agriculture and to that of the whole country, but we do not want to 
be prevented from safely importing those trees, shrubs, and plants which 
do not carry dangerous diseases or insects and which will give assistance, 
comfort, and pleasure to our people. In this state, if we find a person 
who may possibly have smallpox coming into the port of Boston from 
a foreign shore, we do not send him through the streets of Boston in 
a crowded street-car and then in a crowded railroad car to a contagious- 
disease building in the Berkshire Hills, a hundred miles away, in order 
to determine whether or not he has smallpox; and if he has, to keep him 
there until he is fumigated and recovered from the disease. We believe 
that the place to quarantine against dangerous disease is at the thres- 
hold, that is, at the port of entry, and we do it here and not in the 
Berkshire Hills. 
We believe that the place to inspect, fumigate, and treat plants is 
at the port of entry; and we do not believe that it is economical, effi- 
cient,safe,or justifiable, for example, to send plants from San Francisco, 
through California, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, and other states, to 
Washington, 3,000 miles away, for inspection and treatment, and then 
to send them back to San Francisco to be put into use. We believe 
that such a requirement is not only extravagant, wasteful, and unneces- 
sary, but most ill-advised — and we do protest against such regulations. 
We also believe that the inspection and treatment and the acceptance 
or rejection of plants should be by high-grade, skilled, experienced in- 
spectors of the Government — not students, but those who can deter- 
mine what is well and what is ill, what is reasonable and what is un- 
reasonable, in the treatment of plants. 
In other words, we do not favor any evasions or violations of the law. 
We ask that unsound and diseased or infested plants shall be rejected 
at the port of entry. We also ask that sound, clean plants shall be al- 
lowed to come in at one of the large ports and there be inspected, treated 
and accepted or rejected, without unnecessary delay, transportation, 
expense or danger. We ask that the Government establish suitable 
inspection services at two ports on the west coast, such as San Francisco 
and Seattle, one on the south such as New Orleans, and two on the east, 
such as New York and Boston; and that the final decision upon plants 
be made at these ports and the plants there destroyed or released, as the 
case may be. 
Finally, we ask that the regulations be revised in a business way and 
made safe and sound for all concerned. If it is a fact that the loss to 
this country from imported plant diseases and insects is more than a 
million dollars a day, then surely the Federal Government can afford 
to pay, and Congress can justly appropriate, the small amount necessary 
to establish and maintain the inspection services at these ports which 
may be required in addition to what the Government already has 
there. 
By Charles S. Sargent, Arnold Arboretum 
T HE Arnold Arboretum is a museum of living plants in which Har- 
vard University has agreed by contract to grow and display every 
tree and shrub able to support the New England climate. In order to 
carry out this contract the University has been importing plants and 
seeds from other scientific institutions and from commercial nurseries 
since 1874; and for forty years has been carrying on explorations in all 
parts of North America and in Japan, China, Korea, Manchuria, and 
Siberia. These explorations have been undertaken for the purpose of 
introducing into this country trees and other useful plants which had 
been unknown before the establishment of the Arboretum. 
The aim of the Arboretum is to increase the knowledge of trees; its 
museum of living plants growing in Massachusetts is only one of its 
methods for accomplishing this purpose. It is interested in increasing 
the knowleoge of plants in all parts of the United States and in all for- 
eign countries. Much of its work of exploration has been undertaken 
for the purpose of bringing into this country and into Europe trees which 
can succeed only in the Pacific states, Louisiana, Florida, or the milder 
parts of Europe. For the Arboretum there is no foreign country. 
The Arboretum is not charged with having introduced into this 
country any serious plant disease or dangerous insect on the many 
thousand plants which have been imported, often with soil at their 
roots, from every country of the northern hemisphere, or on any of the 
millions of seedlings which it has raised and distributed. During its 
entire existence plants have come to the Arboretum from foreign coun- 
tries, except during the autumn and winter of 1919-20. The Arboretum 
desired to import from Europe a few plants in the autumn of 1919 and 
received permission from the Federal Horticultural Board to do so on 
condition that they were sent first to Washington for inspection and 
disinfection. It was impossible to arrange for the inspection of these 
plants at Boston; and the Arboretum, having had unfortunate exper- 
iences with early importations which had been sent to Washington for 
inspection by agents of the Federal Horticultural Board, has decided 
to give up entirely importing plants and seeds until some modification 
is made in the methods of the Horticultural Board. As the Arboretum 
has been active and successful, especially in the last twenty years, in 
the introduction of new plants into the United States, it is believed that 
its inability to continue this work will be a serious blow to horticultural 
progress in the United States. 
The managers of the Arboretum, in common with every intelligent 
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