140 BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY AND PLANT QUARANTINE [Oct.-Dec. 
found in section 1. A careful consideration of this section will show that it 
authorizes the Secretary only to prescribe conditions and regulations governing 
the issuance of permits for the importation, and inasmuch as it provides that 
the Secretary shall issue the permits for any particular importation of nursery 
stock when . the importer shall have complied with such conditions and regula- 
tions, it would seem to follow that the "conditions and regulations" must oper- 
ate on and be connected with matters and things bearing on such importation 
before the nursery stock is actually admitted. Apparently, the law does not 
seek to control or enforce any restrictions on nursery stock after its entry 
other than the provisions of sections 2 and 4 which relate only to their subse- 
quent interstate movement. Therefore, any conditions attached to the issuance 
of the permit to which the importer would assent requiring him to do certain 
things in connection with the propagation of nursery stock subsequent to its 
entry, would make the transaction one of contract, a breach of which would 
not constitute a violation of the statute. Therefore, the opinion is given that 
regulations made by the Secretary purporting to control nursery stock subsequent 
to its entry are legally unenforceable. 
On November 18, 1918, the Secretary of Agriculture promulgated the follow- 
ing determination under Notice of Quarantine No. 37 : 
"The fact has been determined by the Secretary of Agriculture, and notice 
is hereby given, that there exist in Europe, Asia, Africa, Mexico, Central 
America, and South America, and other foreign countries and localities certain 
injurious insects and fungous diseases new to and not heretofore widely dis- 
tributed within and throughout the United States, which affect and are carried 
by nursery stock and other plants and seeds, the words 'nursery stock and 
other plants and seeds,' including, wherever used in this notice and the rules 
and regulations supplemental hereto, field-grown florists' stock, trees, shrubs, 
vines, cuttings, grafts, scions, buds, fruit pits and other seeds of fruit and or- 
namental trees or shrubs, also field, vegetable, and flower seeds, bedding plants, 
and other herbaceous plants, bulbs, and roots, and other plants and plant 
products, for, or capable, of propagation. 
"Now, therefore, I, D. F. Houston, Secretary of Agriculture, under the author- 
ity conferred by the act of Congress approved August 20, 1912 (37 Stat. 315), 
do hereby declare that it is necessary in order to prevent the further intro- 
duction into the United States of injurious insect pests and fungous diseases, 
to forbid, except as provided in the rules and regulations supplemental hereto, 
the importation into the United States of nursery stock and other plants and 
seeds from the foreign countries and localities named and from any other 
foreign locality or country. 
"On and after June 1, 1919, and until further notice, by virtue of said act 
of Congress approved August 20, 1912, the importation of nursery stock and 
other plants and seeds from the above named and all other foreign countries 
and localities, except as provided in the rules and regulations supplemental 
hereto, is prohibited." 
Under this promulgation, in accordance with the legal interpretation we 
have received of the Plant Quarantine Act, all nursery stock from the countries 
of Europe, Asia, Africa, Mexico, Central America, and South America and other 
foreign countries and localities would have been definitely, completely, and 
finally excluded for any purpose by the Plant Quarantine Act itself. However, 
regulations were set up under the quarantine which provided that certain 
classes of nursery stock and other plants and plant products would be ex- 
empted from the quarantine promulgation. Among these were certain classes 
of bulbs, fruit stock, rose stocks, nuts, and certain classes of seeds. Provision 
was made for entry in limited quantities, on the other hand, from all these 
countries for numerous genera and species of plants. Provision was made 
in practice, at least, for holding the imported plants in detention for a period 
of two years for propagation purposes only although the authority for such 
practice does not appear clearly in the quarantine and does not appear at all in 
the Plant Quarantine Act. 
Quarantine 37 attempts to do those things which should be done by legis- 
lative enactment and really places the Department in the position of legislat- 
ing on things that are considered desirable or necessary in nursery stock and 
plant importations. When this is done in many cases first consideration is 
likely to be economic consideration and this m]ay bring the Department into 
the trade protection field and in many instances entirely out of the quarantine 
field. 
