1939J SERVICE AND REGULATORY ANNOUNCEMENTS 141 
Acting on the theory that to reduce the volume of importations of foreign 
plants the danger of importation of pests is thereby correspondingly reduced, 
numerous classes of plants have been completely excluded when they became 
commercially available in this country. Other plants are permitted entry in 
unlimited numbers because they are not commercially available in this coun- 
try. Certainly it can not be denied that there is scientific merit for the con- 
clusion that a* logical reduction of the volume of imports does reduce the risk 
of pest introduction. Particularly is this true in considering the status of 
obscure and undetectable and unknown insect pests and plant diseases. How- 
ever, Quarantine No. 37 does not do this. 
It is suggested that in order to place the importation of plants from foreign 
countries and the quarantine governing the importation of such plants on a 
sound, scientific, fully defensible basis, the Congress of the United States should 
declare a policy. It should say it is the policy of the United States that in order 
to safeguard agriculture in the United States by preventing introduction into 
or the spread within the United States of plant pests which exist in other coun- 
tries which may be known or unknown, detectable or undetectable by inspection, 
and which may be carried by plants and plant products of such other countries 
when offered for importation into the United States, that plants and plant prod- 
ucts capable of propagation offered for importation from any foreign country 
shall not be imported except for propagation under surveillance of the Secretary 
of Agriculture for such time and under such conditions as the said Secretary may 
prescribe in order that he may be able to determine by inspection or otherwise 
whether such plants and plant products are apparently free from plant pests. 
The term "plant pests" should include any stage of development of insect, 
nematode, or other invertebrate animal, or any virus, or any bacteria, fungi, 
or other parasitical plant which can injure or cause plant disease in plants or 
parts thereof, and restrictions should apply to the organisms as such. 
Many of the very pests which existing quarantines seek to exclude in or on 
imported plants and plant products could and still can enter as such divorced 
from their hosts, since there is no authority to exclude or regulate their entry. 
Obviously, the door should not be left open for their unrestricted entry and it is 
highly desirable that authority be secured to control and prevent the entry of 
plant pathogenes along lines recommended in the resolutions passed at the 
annual meeting of the American Phytopathological Society held in St. Louis in 
December 1935. Authority should be continued for the exclusion of plants and 
plant pathogenes known to be dangerous to the United States in their ability 
to introduce pests, and the provision for such exclusion should apply not only to 
plants and plant products but to any other article or matter which might be 
considered likely to introduce pests, and such articles or matter should be under- 
stood to include any other substance whatsoever which the Secretary of Agricul- 
ture might from time to time determine and declare as likely to be a medium 
through which plant pests might be introduced from foreign countries into the 
United States. Such procedure would have a sound, scientific, common-sense 
basis; it would recognize the need for definitely excluding plants or articles 
which may carry known pests; it would provide for growing under such 
surveillance as would be necessary plants not known to be dangerous but in 
recognition of the principle that all plants may be dangerous through the possible 
presence of unknown or undetectable pests, would enable sufficient inspection to 
develop this information in the case of each shipment before final release to the 
country; it would automatically eliminate the limit difficulties which now exist 
because there would be no reason for someone to bring in more than was wanted 
for propagation purposes; it would take the Department out of the economic de- 
terminations which are constantly before it; it would separate quarantine con- 
siderations from trade considerations, and finally, it would accomplish more 
than Quarantine 37 ever has accomplished and would remove the causes for 
constant dispute which are always inherent in a quarantine which has so many 
of the selective features that Quarantine 37 has. 
In short, this procedure would do several most desirable things: (1) It would 
definitely exclude plants and other articles known to he pest carriers: (2) it 
would bring under control the importation of insects and plant pathogenes as 
such: (3) it would permit the importation for propagation of plants not known 
to he dangerous by nurserymen, gardeners, and groups or Individuals; (4) it 
would permit of the holding of imported plants under surveillance of the Secre- 
tary of Agriculture for such time and under such conditions as to make possible 
inspection to determine freedom from pests: < ."> i it would settle for all time the 
selection of people who should be permitted to import plants and how many 
