to make bricks without clay, so it is impossible to build gardens with- 
out plant material. The cutting-oS of raw supplies can lead to no 
other end than the furnishing of all our gardens with the common 
material most cheaply and easily produced. As aU know well, the 
nursery business of this coimtr>- is backward and prefers to deal in 
quantity rather than quahty. But even were it otherwise, the business 
caimot be maintained, extended and developed as the necessities of 
American gardens demand unless it has at its command the world's 
supply. The Federal Horticultural Board apparently considers that 
the so-called special import permits admit of this, but those of ex- 
perience know fuU well that they do not, they can not, and that they 
v,ill not. The facihties at Washington, D, C._, are utterly inadequate to 
cope with such a situation. Further, this country' is so large that it 
is impossible to import all its necessar}' horticultural material through 
one port. As the law now stands Seattle must draw any new Japanese 
material it needs by way of Washington! 
No plant lover has the remotest desire to introduce any plant pest. 
He believes in rigorous Inspection and if it be found necessary, in 
quarantine, too, but he is and must be utterly and absolutely opposed 
to plant exclusion, and to dictation as to what he may or may not grow 
and enjoy the beauty of in his garden. He objects to being allowed a 
Hyacinth and to not being allowed a Snow-drop. 
The object supposed to be obtained by Quarantine No. 37 is the 
exclusion of pests dangerous to vegetable growth of all kinds. This 
object is impossible of accomplishment in its entirety since such pests 
as are of a bacterial nature and others of fungoid origin may be dis- 
seminated by air currents even as was the germ of the recent influenza 
epidemic. Those of insect character can travel on material other than 
li\Tng plants. Witness the Corn-borer now alarming New England 
farmers and the Wood-borer found in American packing cases and 
about which AustraUa is just now agitated. The logical end of such. 
legislation is to cut off all international trade and intercourse. This 
new quarantine act will not effectively keep out diseases; it wiU 
accompHsh no more in that direction than proper inspection at ports 
of import would do and have done in the past. 
In the matter of disease it should be remembered that we our- 
selves and our forebears by the rapid settlement of this countr}', 
by the destruction of its forests and by the congregation of people in 
cities and \-illages vrith. all their insanitation have disturbed the bal- 
ance of nature and the price will be exacted until the balance be read- 
justed. The damage wrought by pests is glibly stated in miUions and 
bihions of dollars — the figures loosely estimated and used solely 
for effect — but never a word is said of the real billions of dollars the 
