Botanic Gardens 
14 tfc, November 1921 
Singapore 
i 
Si 
r# 
In reference to the file Secretary of Stai© 
9139/21, 3! h bv* the honour to lay before you the proposals I 
make for plant inspection at ports. 
p ™e have on the one hand our own prohibi tione 
J 4 
to enforce. for instance the old embargo on palms from the 
* 
Philippine/ islands and the new embargo on Keveas from America 
and we have power to add thereto in the Ordinance to provide 
for the protection of tree plants and cultivated Products from 
disease and pests, section 22 : and we have on the other 
hand to certify exported plants free from disease as a Trade 
measure to enable our merchants to send living plants to 
various countries. 
It is not possible to entrust the duty of 
watching at the ports to any but one of two Departments - ////; 
namely the Gardens Department or the Department of Agriculture 
and in my unhesitating opinion the preference lies with the 
I 
former, not merely because the Gardens Department nais t always 
be better developed at out two chief ports than the Agricul¬ 
tural Department but the Gardens Department handles a vastly j 
greater variety of plants than the Agricultural Department* 
4 My preference for the Gardens f Department 
is not altered by the current proposal that the Director of 
gardens should hove his centre of work in Kuala lumpoi because 
the proposal does not extend to mfcving the Assistant Director 
who. resident in Singapore, will in ray plans carry on his , 
™ * 
study of the Cryptogams in the laboratory that we have 
prepared for him, and no one in the country will be better 
than he in the knowledge of foreign fungus»pe• -1e while as a 
horticultural officer he is compelled to know inject pest and l 
