142 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 16 
past we have been obliged to extract from the nurseryman in the 
form of a sworn statement, a promise to make our certificate mean 
what it says when placed on a shipment. That other states have 
been obliged to do the same in the past is evident from the fact that 
each year some scale infested stock is shipped and delivered to fruit 
growers with state inspection certificates attached. All inspectors 
of experience know that this is true and yet it can hardly be avoided 
unless the summer inspection is followed by actual inspection of 
every tree in the fall or spring at digging time. 
Inspection at Digging Time 
That we must come to the regular practice of inspecting and 
culling all nursery stock at digging time is the opinion of many in¬ 
spectors and nurserymen alike. That it will be expensive and 
difficult to administer is perfectly apparent. Yet if conscientiously 
carried out it will revolutionize plant inspection work. Uniform 
inspection laws administered under varying degrees of laxness can 
not possibly accomplish much toward actual uniformity of results 
as desired. However, if a competent inspector looks at every tree 
as it comes from the ground from every nursery in the United States 
and destroys every tree that fails to pass inspection, then and only 
then can we really say that we are rendering the service nurserymen, 
fruit growers and farmers have a just right to expect of us. Then 
and only then can we honestly place our stamp of approval in the 
form of a certificate on shipments of nursery stock. 
This year the Missouri Plant Inspection Service has added to 
its regular annual summer inspection work the inspection of stock 
at digging time. All the small nurseries found infested with scale 
or dangerously near infested orchards and one of the largest nurseries 
in the state, at the request of the owners received this added service. 
About three hundred acres received inspection at digging time this 
fall. With the co-operation of the nurserymen the work can be 
carried along rapidly. The most conspicuous troubles with trees are 
readily apparent to any experienced foreman and can be discarded 
by him in the field when lifted from the ground. In this way one 
man can in a few days inspect and cull all the stock grown by a small 
nurseryman and two or three men can handle the stock as fast as 
the larger firms can bring it in from the field, especially if the haul 
is fairly long. For a state like Missouri with one hundred nurseries 
scattered over an area roughly three hundred miles square this will 
