What the Quarantine Department of the 
State Plant Board is Doing 
A. C. Brown, Gainesville 
At the last few meetings of the Horti¬ 
cultural Society, you listened to talks on 
the work of the Quarantine Department 
of the State Plant Board, and have had 
the work of the department explained to 
you. However, as some of you may be 
from Missouri, we are going to show you 
tonight, with the aid of lantern slides, just 
how Florida is exposed to invasion by in¬ 
sect pests and plant diseases from other 
states and countries, the establishment of 
any of which in this State would cause 
enormous losses to the horticultural and 
agricultural interests of the State. 
Judging from the number of intercep¬ 
tions of major pests made by inspectors 
of the State Plant Board since the work 
was started in 1916, it is safe to assume 
that had this system of port and mail in¬ 
spection been in effect several years ago, 
many of the pests now with us would be 
still knocking at the door. We do not 
claim that all of the pests now established 
would have been prevented entry, but we 
do claim that their advent into the State 
would have been delayed for several years. 
The payment of insurance premiums does 
not prevent death or fires, but we feel that 
when the premiums are paid up regularly, 
we have done as much as we can to pre¬ 
vent disaster when either occurs. So it is 
with the Quarantine Department. We 
hope, but do not claim, that we will pre¬ 
vent the entry of dreaded pests into the 
State; we know that some of them would 
now no doubt be established if it had not 
been for the untiring work of the men 
stationed at the ports. The pests men¬ 
tioned later are all causing huge losses 
wherever they are established, and most of 
them have been intercepted at one time or 
another by our inspectors. 
In the New England States the gipsy 
moth has for years caused great destruc¬ 
tion to the agricultural and horticultural 
interests of that section. In 1917, the 
State of Massachusetts paid out the sum 
of three hundred thousand dollars for ar¬ 
senate of lead alone. This sum was not 
the total appropriation, nor does it repre¬ 
sent the cost of spraying, inspecting, etc. 
It merely represents the amount paid out 
for one item of the work. No attempt 
was made at eradication, for through the 
short-sightedness of a Legislature, who 
decided that because the moth was de¬ 
creasing through the efforts of eradication 
there was no use of spending more money 
to finish the work, the eradication work 
was dropped many years ago. As a re- 
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