Francisco, through California, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, and other 
states, to Washington, 3,000 miles away, for inspection and treat- 
ment, 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 unnecessary, but most ill-advised — and we do protest against 
such regulations. 
We also believe that the inspection and treatment and the accept- 
ance or rejection of plants should be by high-grade, skilled, experienced 
inspectors of the Government — not students, but those who can 
determine what is well and what is ill, what is reasonable and what is 
unreasonable, 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 allowed to come in at one of the large ports and there be in- 
spected, 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 over a million dollars a day, then surely the 
Federal government can afford to pay, and Congress can justly ap- 
propriate, 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. 
The Arnold Arboretum is a museum of living plants in which Statement of 
Harvard University has agreed by contract to grow and display ever>' Professor 
tree and shrub able to support the New England climate. In order to Sargent 
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 increas- 
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