June, ’23 
strong: western views on quarantine 
269 
pests now causing serious damage in other states and countries. Proof 
of the value of quarantine to California lies in the fact that, despite the 
favorable conditions in that state for pest establishment, the products of 
California, with one or two very minor exceptions, are accorded an 
unchallenged entry to the markets of the world. Believing that what 
is to the benefit of an individual state is beneficial to a group of states 
comprising a section where conditions are more or less similar, G. H. 
Hecke, Director of Agriculture of California, in 1919 called together the 
quarantine officers of the eleven western states, British Columbia, 
Hawaii, and the northern district of Lower California, and formed 
the Western Plant Quarantine Board. The object and purpose of this 
organization is set forth in clear terms in the constitution of the Board 
as follows: 
“It shall be the purpose of this organization to secure a greater 
mutual understanding, closer cooperation and uniformity of action 
for the efficient protection of our plant industries against plant 
disease and insect pests.” 
There is contained in that section of the constitution of the Western 
Plant Quarantine Board a declaration of the principles of the entire 
West, in so far as plant quarantine is concerned. This principle obligates 
any individual state to properly quarantine against pests within its 
own borders for the protection of another state and to enforce the 
quarantine with the same regularity and vigor as would be the case if 
the quarantine were directed against any other state. This is not only 
an action in good faith, but it is an action which in many cases keeps the 
markets open for plant products from non-infested portions of the state. 
Quarantine officers of the West are greatly disturbed by the failure of 
eastern and some of the southern states to promulgate and enforce 
quarantines against serious pests which now exist in certain localities. 
Absence of quarantine action or lax enforcement of existing regulations 
causes every shipment of plant products not certified by the Federal 
authorities to be viewed and probably treated as an undesirable and 
dangerous importation. This suspicion exists not only in the minds 
of western quarantine officers, but in the minds of officials in at least a 
few states in other sections of the United States. The suspicion grows 
and finds expression in quarantine action proportionately as the value of 
plant quarantine is recognized and its principles adopted by individual 
states. It is a suspicion which should not be permitted to grow; it 
should be dissipated; it can be dissipated when the various states of the 
Union adopt proper plant quarantine practices. 
