204 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
ida, nursery inspection has not become 
systematized; and where, furthermore, 
citrus nursery stock has not before 
been certified [the writer did this for 
the first time last fall, when several 
states and foreign countries required 
citrus stock to be admitted under cer¬ 
tificate only]; it appears no more than 
fair that conditions of fumigation, de¬ 
foliation, etc., should sometimes be re¬ 
quired in giving a certificate in lieu 
of absolute freedom from insects. I 
admit that to the buyer one insect is 
as bad as a thousand, and the case 
merits careful thought and considera¬ 
tion. But the nurseryman having spent 
thousands of dollars to grow his trees, 
feels that to be refused a certificate 
means bankruptcy. The grower hardly 
desires to see the nurseryman bank¬ 
rupted, neither does he wish to see his 
own property jeopardized. In such an 
instance the inspector almost invaria¬ 
bly steps into the breach, so to speak. 
His knowledge of a certain pest, for 
instance, convinces him that the stock 
should be absolutely safe when cut 
back, defoliated and fumigated. He 
requires this as a condition of giving 
the certificate. The nurseryman as¬ 
sumes the moral obligation of good 
faith and the other conditions previ¬ 
ously referred to, and the case is gen¬ 
erally settled; unless the nurseryman, 
to his discredit and to the detriment 
of the inspector, breaks faith. Besides 
the above stipulations the inspector 
may require the destruction of all in¬ 
fested trees, and the exclusion of cer¬ 
tain blocks of stock from the market; 
or the entire nursery may be placed 
under quarantine pending a period of 
cleaning up. All of these practices are 
in the nature of a compromise; but 
they are practiced by all inspectors in 
some form or other, as will be evident 
from a perusal of the literature availa¬ 
ble on the subject. 
In connection with this same point 
we may imagine the case of two nurs¬ 
erymen, one of whom succeeds in con¬ 
cealing any disease in his stock; while 
the other one does not attempt this, 
and even points out the doubtful trees 
to the inspector. Under a cast-iron 
rule of “one insect—no certificate,” 
the honest man would fail to get a cer¬ 
tificate, while his less honest neighbor 
would get one. Again, of two neigh¬ 
boring small nurseries, the one is per¬ 
haps found infested or diseased; the 
other one is not, and gets a certificate. 
The whole of a large nursery is as 
large as two small ones; one portion is 
perhaps infested, the other part not. In 
view of the fact that the inspector can 
hardly, under ordinary conditions, re¬ 
fuse a certificate to the small clean 
nursery; then ought not the large 
nursery to be certified, with proper re¬ 
strictions, to the extent of its clean 
portions, leaving the infested portion 
without any certificate? Besides, if 
the man with the clean, small nursery 
is dishonest, he may buy infested stock 
from his neighbor and sell it under his 
certificate. 
The Inspector.— The rights of the 
inspector—what are they? He is en¬ 
titled to a hearing if anything is sup¬ 
posed to be going wrong. He should 
be the first one to be notified. Thus, 
last fall, the entomologist of a certain 
southern state wrote to me stating 
that there were rumors of unclean 
stock having been shipped into that 
state from Florida. I asked him to send 
me particulars at once. He answered 
