America wished to make such a stab at the prosperity of the French 
nurserymen, and he remarked rightly that the new law was " vilaine." 
All I could do was to answer him and tell him that I agreed with him 
and that being away from America I did not understand the reasons 
for it. When I was at Nancy, Lemoine remarked that the whole 
thing was "Boche," and that it could be interpreted in no other way 
by the French and Enghsh growers whose plants were prohibited, 
while bulbs were permitted to come from neutral pro-German Holland 
and LilUes-of-the- Valley from Berlin. 
I was much pleased to see the very able articles which appeared 
in the January and March numbers of the Bulletin and to hear of 
the resolution against the quarantine, which you passed at this morn- 
ing's meeting. There is no reason why five men, none of whom is a 
horticulturist, should have the. power of life or death over the florists 
and nurserymen in this country, and the power of preventing milHons 
of amateur gardeners from growing the plants which they desire. 
Under the pretext of excluding insects they have really arrogated to 
this Board powers which were never before given to a similar depart- 
ment, and which were never intended to be given to this Board under 
the act creating it, for when it sets itself up as a tariff board and 
virtually determines what plants shall or shall not be grown in the 
United States, it is taking authority wliich belongs to Congress alone. 
No one will deny that foreign pests have been and are a source of 
terror to this country, but if the danger is as great as is pictured by 
the Federal Horticultural Board and if their ability to control this 
danger by quarantine has been correctly stated, then there can be 
only one logical outcome — namely, to prohibit all commerce of any 
kind and all travel by people, and to make each village or town suffi- 
cient unto itself and communicating with the outside world only by 
telegraph or telephone. Even this has the fault of not being severe 
enough for it does not prohibit interstate travel by birds nor the blow- 
ing of spores of disease by the wind. 
The Federal Florticultural Board is not true to its ideals if it 
stops at anything less than the quarantine I have just outlined, for 
why should a gardener be prohibited from bringing in plants while 
materials like hemp, on which the corn borer originally came, is allowed 
to come in? Why the quarantine against plants with soil on the roots 
when whole shiploads of soil are brought constantly from Europe 
as ballast, and just why is a Crocus safe and a Colchicum dangerous, or 
why are grafted roses dangerous while Manetti seedlings are safe, 
and do you think that this latter fact has anything to do with the 
fact that one of our largest rose growers of the middle west believes 
in the present quarantine? He is honest enough to admit that he does, 
but there are ugly rumors around of several large nurserymen openly 
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