44 PLANT QUARANTINE AND CONTROL ADMINISTRATION [April-June 
been included as they could not be verified completely and in the absence of 
publication could not be used as citations in future litigation. 
The concluding paragraphs of the synopsis, reporting decisions with reference 
to State laws which declare certain privately owned trees, weeds, and other 
plants to be nuisances, are included owing to the fact that laws of this kind are 
similar in the principle involved to various State pest-suppression statutes. 
Lee A. Strong, 
Chief, Plant Quarantine and Control Administration. 
LITIGATION INVOLVING THE CONFLICT BETWEEN FEDERAL AND STATE PLANT QUARAN- 
TINE LAWS 
(a) Federal courts 
The outstanding case is that of Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation 
Co. v. The State of Washington, decided in the United States Supreme Court 
March 1, 1926. This case involved a shipment into the State of Washington 
from Idaho of alfalfa which was not in sealed containers, as required by a 
Washington statute which prohibited its importation otherwise. The court held 
(quoting the syllabus in 270 U. S. 87) as follows: 
The power of the States to quarantine against importation of farm produce likely to 
convey injurious insects from infested localities, was suspended, in so far as concerns 
interstate commerce, by the Act of August 20, 1912, as amended March 4. 1917, investing 
the Secretary of Agriculture 'with full authority over the subject. P. 96. 
This Act of Congress can not be construed as leaving the States at liberty to establish 
such quarantines in tbe absence of action by the Secretary of Agriculure. P. 102. 
A quarantine proclaimed by the State of Washington under Ls. 1921, c. 105, against 
importation of alfalfa hay and alfalfa meal, except in sealed containers, coming from 
designated regions in other States found to harbor the alfalfa weevil, is therefore inoper- 
ative. Pp. 93, 102. 
(&) State courts 
The case of American Railway Express Co. v. Morris, in 1928, in the Supreme 
Court of Oklahoma (264 Pac. 619), involved the transportation into the State of 
Oklahoma from the State of Texas of sweetpotato plants, which had not been 
inspected and found free from injurious insects and diseases, as required by the 
quarantine laws of Oklahoma. It was held (quoting from the syllabus) as 
follows : 
In the absence of any action taken by the National Congress on the subject matter, a 
State, in the exercise of its police power, may establish quarantines against plants, the 
importation of which may expose plants or growing crops to disease, injury, or destruction. 
Act Congress August 20, 1912, Sec. 8, as amended by Act March 4, 1917 (Comp. St. 
1918. Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, Sec. 8760, 7 USCA Sec. 171), gave to Agricultural 
Department of federal government exclusively the care of horticulture and agriculture 
of several States, so far as affected injuriously by transportation in foreign and inter- 
state commerce of anything which by reason of its character can injuriously affect trees, 
plants, or crops. 
Chapter 20. art. 12 (sections 3795-3834), C. O. S. 1921, giving the board of agriculture 
power to establish quarantines against the importation of infected trees and plants, can- 
not be given application V\hile the Act of Congress of August 20, 1912, Sec. 8, as amended 
by the Act of March 4, 1917 (Comp. St. 1918, Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, Sec. 8760, 
7 USCA Sec. 161), is in force. 
These are the only court cases dealing specifically with the question of the 
conflict between Federal and State agricultural quarantine laws, but the prin- 
ciples thus laid down follow those enunciated in a number of earlier United 
States Supreme Court cases, which dealt mainly, however, with the conflict 
between Federal and State quarantines, covering or relating to the interstate 
shipments of persons, animals, and to commodities other than plants. The chief 
decisions of this kind, up to 1924, were gathered together by the Solicitor for 
the United States Department of Agriculture in that year and are published 
on pages 67 to 73 in the Service and Regulatory Announcements of the Federal 
Horticultural Board in its October issue, 1924. 
While the principles enunciated in the Oregon- Washington and the American 
Railway Express Co. cases, above cited, are therein applied for the first time 
to plant quarantines, these same principles had, for a long period, been made 
applicable by the courts to State and Federal regulations of shipments of ani- 
mals and animal products, as will be seen from the case of Reid v. Colorado, 
decided by the Supreme Court in 1902 and reported in 187 U. S. 137, wherein, 
at page 146, the court said: 
When tbe entire subject of the transportation of livestock from one State to another 
is taken under direct national supervision and a system devised by which diseased stock 
