64 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
The National N urseryman. 
C L. YATES, Proprietor. RALPH T. OLCOTT. Editor 
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY 
The National Nurseryman Publishing Co., 
^05 Cox Building, Rochester, N. Y. 
The only trade journal issued for Growers and Dealers in Nursery Stock of 
all kinds. It circulates throughout the United States and Canada 
OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF NURSERYMEN. 
SUBSCRIPTION RATES. 
One Year, in advance, - - - - - $1.00 
Six Months, ------- .71^ 
Foreign Subscriptions, in advance, - - - 1.50 
Six Months, “ “ _ . - i.oo 
Advertising rates will be sent upon application. Advertisements 
should reach this office by the 20th of the month previous to the date of 
issue. 
Payment in advance required for foreign advertisements. 
[^“Drafts on New York or postal orders, instead of checks, are 
requested. 
Correspondence from all points and articles of interest to nursery¬ 
men and horticulturists are cordially solicited. 
Entered in the Post Office at Rochester, N. Y,, as second-class matter. 
Rochester, N. Y., June, 1895. 
THE NURSERYMAN’S GUARANTEE. 
The distribution of injurious insects has been so great 
that it is difficult in many cases to ascertain the original 
home of many species. Horticulture is the greatest 
sufferer from these insects and within a few years the 
necessity of combating them in systematic manner has 
forced itself upon all who are interested in the production 
of fruit. State legislation has been secured to provide 
inspection of orchards and nursery stock and the success 
of such measures has resulted in the extension of the 
plan. The determined efforts upon the part of state 
boards of horticulture to adopt stringent methods to 
check the advance of injurious insects must be taken into 
consideration by the nurserymen. 
It is generally admitted that the difficulties in the way 
of establishing an official quarantine on the border of 
every state in the Union are too great to be overcome and 
that the main thing for federal and state governments to 
do is to give liberal support to the scientific study of 
injurious insects and plant diseases. The State of New 
York has just taken a pronounced step in this direction. 
Other states are favorable to such investigation. Professor 
L. O. Howard, entomologist of the United States Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture, says : “ The immediate adoption by 
all eastern states of a law which shall declare, as does the 
Idaho law, that it is the duty of every agriculturist to 
adopt and apply, from time to time, proper methods for 
the destruction of insects ; which gives the governor or 
ruling body of the State Board of Agriculture power to 
appoint county commissioners upon proper request, and 
which shall further provide that these commissioners shall 
have the power to enforce remedial work when horticul¬ 
tural interests are threatened through the neglect of indi¬ 
viduals, be the details what they may, should be urged by 
all prominent bodies of horticulturists. Another necessity 
is the passage of a law providing a penalty for the know¬ 
ing sale of nursery stock or fruit affected by injurious 
insects, although the necessity for such a regulation will 
be obviated to a great degree if horticulturists will demand 
a written guarantee of non-infestation with every invoice 
of nursery stock purchased. There is no doubt that the 
prime agent in the distribution of injurious insects, particu¬ 
larly scale insects, is the nurseryman. Too frequently an 
orchard is handicapped from the start by the negligent 
planting of stock which bears some destructive scale insect, 
or contains some injurious borer, or bears the eggs of leaf- 
feeders or other enemies. Not a single tree should be 
set out without the most careful examination, and in fact 
we may almost go so far as to say that no stock should 
be planted without having been thoroughly washed with 
some strong insecticide, or, better, fumigated with hydro¬ 
cyanic acid gas. At the very least, as I have suggested 
before, require from the person from whom the nursery 
stock is bought, a clean bill of health, a guarantee of 
freedom from injurious insects. With such a guarantee 
it is reasonable to suppose that damages can be gained if 
the stock should subsequently prove to be infected. No 
nurseryman could do a wiser thing than habitually to give 
such a guarantee, and to advertise the fact that all stock 
has been thoroughly fumigated before it is sent out. Had 
such a custom prevailed in the past it is safe to say that a 
very large proportion of the damage which has been done 
by injurious insects to orchard trees all over the United 
States would have been absolutely prevented, and the 
spread of scale insects in particular would have been 
limited almost to insignificance. With such a custom 
prevailing in the future, these centers of infection, which 
gather new injurious insects from all parts of the world 
and distribute them broadcast upon young plants, will 
then cease to perform this destructive office, and a large 
measure of the danger to which every fruit grower is now 
subject will have been wiped out.” 
It is probable that the question of guaranteeing nur¬ 
sery stock to be free from injurious insects will confront 
the nurserymen very soon. In cases where the San Jose 
scale has been discovered this has already been necessary, 
and there is opportunity to increase confidence upon the 
part of the planter by guaranteeing stock free from in¬ 
jurious insects. As was recently pointed out the cost of 
spraying and examining stock in nursery rows is not great 
and it is probable that the guarantee would increase sales 
sufficiently to more than pay this cost. 
As the result of investigations at the nurseries of Will¬ 
iam Parry in New Jersey, professional horticulturists say 
that it is safer to buy treated stock than untreated stock 
from a nursery supposed to be free. 
