1937] 
SERVICE AND REGULATORY ANNOUNCEMENTS 
275 
The alfalfa weevil is the subject of 25 State quarantines, all varying either as 
to infested area, commodities covered, or as to treatment of such commodities as 
a prerequisite of shipment. Similar conditions apply all the way down the line 
in practically every instance where more than one State has a quarantine 
against the same pest. There would seem to be no logical reason why 52 plant 
pests, now the subject of more than 200 State quarantines, could not be covered 
by 52 uniform quarantines, or why the 32 quarantines, now. applying to the corn 
borer, could not be reduced to 1 quarantine, or the 25 now enforced against the 
alfalfa weevil could not be reduced to 1. If this cannot be done or if it is not 
done, what is going to be the situation with respect to the Japanese beetle quar- 
antine if and when the Federal quarantine is given up? Standardization of 
Inspection work and State quarantines can be accomplished and I am pleased 
to be able to say that the State quarantine officers, through their regional plant 
boards and through the National Plant Board in cooperation with the Bureau 
of Entomolgy and Plant Quarantine, or perhaps I should say assisted by the 
Bureau, are making progress in that direction. More progress is needed and I 
am sure it will come. The Bureau is now undertaking a careful review of each 
and every Federal quarantine in an attempt to simplify and clarify the w^ord- 
ing and make more effective and more simple the working of each quarantine. 
You have been familiar for several years with the work that has been done 
on the phony disease of peaches in the South. A newly discovered disease — 
peach mosaic — found for the first time at Brownwood, Tex., during 1931, has 
since been found in the States of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Okla- 
homa, and California. It seems to be an extremely serious virus disease which 
may be artificially transmitted by budwood or peach bark grafts from either 
twig or root bark ; hence, the most probable means of long-distance spread is 
through the medium of infected host plants or budding wood. The natural 
spread seems to be rapid and apparently occurs in colony formation. Eradica- 
tion of this disease is looked upon as practicable if we may depend on evidence 
gained as a result of the work in Colorado and Utah, the only States where the 
eradication work has been energetically carried on a sufficient length of time 
to make accurate observations possible. The program on this disease and on; 
the phony peach disease is carried on in cooperation with the States concerned 
and since August 1935, to date, 185,000 orchard trees, more than 6,500,000 aban- 
doned orchard trees, and more than 55,000,000 escaped peach trees have been 
destroyed. Much more of this type of work could well be done in the interest 
of pest control in this country. 
At the convention of this association in Chicago on July 20, 1933, I delivered 
an address to which I gave the rather imposing title of "The Past, Present, and 
Future of Quarantine 37." I pointed out what I thought were the bad features 
of the procedure we were following in enforcing the provisions of Quarantine 37, 
and while I did not indulge to any marked degree in crystal gazing in discussing^ 
the future of Quarantine 37, my limited entry into this field met with about the 
same success that most such efforts meet wuth. Following the delivery of this 
address a public conference was called in Washington on October 25, 1933, to 
reexamine the underlying principles involved in the interpretation and enforce- 
ment of Quarantine 37. It was specifically proposed to consider the elimination 
of consideration of the availability of plants in this country; limitation to be 
placed on the number of plants which may be imported by reason of facilities, 
or lack of the same, for adequate inspection ; value of considering horticultural 
qualifications of applicants in the issuance of permits : desirability of continuing 
to hold certain plants for 2 or more years before release; the advisability of 
providing for the inspection of imported plants at New York and certain other 
ports of entry rather than shipping them to Washington as at present, and such 
other pertinent items as might be brought up. At this conference, as is usual 
with such conferences and public hearings, the sentiment of those in attendance 
was pretty largely moulded in advance of the conference by what might be 
termed paid representatives of special groups, and the fundamental principles 
of the quarantine were either discussed very superficially or not touched on at 
all. Aside from the comparatively few people who are interested commercially 
in the effects of the quarantine, those large masses of people who are affected 
in a small way individually but in a large way collectively, are seldom if ever 
represented at these conferences and public hearings and their real opinion is 
not therefore brought into public view. That was true of the conference held 
in October 1933. 
It has been frequently noted that, in the words of the Federal Horticultural 
Board, Quarantine 37 voiced the policy of practical exclusion of plants if pests- 
