io8 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
NEW YORK SCALE LAW. 
Serious Difficulty Arises Out of State Department Interpre¬ 
tation Dealers Narrowly Escape Embargo on Their Business 
— Wholesalers Make Strong Efforts to Secure a Con¬ 
struction in Their Favor—The Correspondence. 
Trouble developed early last month over the interpretation 
by C. A. Wieting, New York state commissioner of agricul¬ 
ture, of the law passed by the last legislature relating to the 
San Jose scale. The law became effective on June ist. It 
provides that all nursery stock in the state should be inspected 
prior to September ist. But as the territory could not be 
covered by that time the limit was extended. 
When dealers who do not grow stock applied for the inspec¬ 
tion of stock sent to their packing grounds, they were informed 
that Commissioner Wieting had ruled that only nursery stock 
in nursery rows could be inspected. As the law provides that 
no nursery stock can be shipped within the state or out of the 
state without a certificate and as the dealers could not get a 
certificate in their own names, the handicap on their business 
by reason of the new law was obvious. 
MR. ROUSE’S APPEAL. 
Irving Rouse, of Rochester, N. Y., who with secretary 
Pitkin, of the Eastern Nurserymen’s Association, drafted the 
bill, was appealed to and he at once sent the following letter 
to Commissioner Wieting : 
Rochester, N. Y., Sept. 7th, 1898. 
Hon. C. A. Wieting, 
Commissioner of Agriculture, Albany, N. Y. 
Dear Sir —My attention has been called to one feature of the San 
Jose Scale law passed last winter, which badly needs attention and at 
once. There are in this city as in other parts of the state, a large 
number of.reputable resident dealers in nursery stock, men who 
employ in some cases a large number of agents, who take orders for 
nursery products. These orders are collated and the goods to properly 
fill them are bought, sometimes from as many as twenty-five different 
nurseries. They are delivered at the local dealers’ packing yard, 
where they are assorted and put up and eventually shipped out. Many 
of these parties own no growing nursery stock. Under the law it is 
impossible for them to get a certificate. Without a certificate they 
are uuable to reship the stock which they have bought, and which all 
comes to them under your certificate and is all inspected stock. In 
rare cases they may buy some stock from other states, but as a rule 
the freight charges preclude this, and the price of nursery stock in 
New York state usually rules as low as anywhere. Now, the question 
is, what can your department do for these men. Their stock has 
already been inspected, and they may be in the possession of a dozen 
or twenty certificates, in this effect, and yet having none of their own 
they are unable to forward the goods. Is it not possible for your 
department to authorize your inspector, when he is satisfied that the 
goods handled have been properly inspected, to issue a certificate to 
these parties, or can you not authorize these parties to send the goods 
out under a blank certificate, a certificate signed by you stating, 
that the stock covered by this certificate has been duly inspected, with¬ 
out these gentlemen’s names appearing. Or possibly the goods could 
be reinspected and a certificate issued after the stock is delivered on 
the packing ground. At all events, something must be done, as the 
interests threatened are large. 
As one of the gentlemen drafting the original bill, I can assure you 
that no such condition of affairs was contemplated, as we took it for 
granted that a grower’s certificate would cover the stock anywhere. 
Kindly let me hear from you at your earliest convenience, and oblige. 
Yours very truly, 
Irving Rouse, 
He received the following reply from Albany : 
Mr. Irving Rouse, Rochester, N. Y. 
Dear Sir —Your communication of the 7th inst. has just been laid 
before me. I thought last winter when you and your colleagues had 
completed your labors on the San Jose scale law, that you had antici¬ 
pated all the possible contingencies that might arise. A great deal of 
labor was put upon the bill. It was drawn and re-drawn twelve or 
fourteen times in this office. It is a good illustration of the fact that 
you cannot anticipate all the conditions that may have to be met. The 
same complaint that you make has been made by a number of others 
and I have submitted the question to the attorney general’s office and 
have been informed that I have no power conferred by the statute/to 
issue a certificate to persons who are dealers only, that is, in the sense 
that they are not growers of nursery stock. 
What kind of a position would the Commissioner of Agriculture be 
in if he should issue a certificate to a dealer who had no nursery of his 
own, on the theory that the said dealer would only buy from the in¬ 
spected nurseries, and who might buy stock unknowingly, as the 
case might be, from a nursery to which the Commissioner of Agricul¬ 
ture had refused to issue a certificate, or from a nursery suffering from 
the San Jose scale which we had not as yet got around to examine ? 
Very respectfully yours, 
C. A. Wieting, Commissioner of Agriculture. 
IN THE DEALERS’ INTERESTS. 
To a representative of the National Nurseryman Mr. 
Rouse said : “ The law is being interpreted by the commis¬ 
sioner of agriculture in a manner entirely different from that 
intended by its originators. The impression is prevaling 
among the dealers that the bill was drafted for the purpose of 
driving the dealers out of business. As one of the wholesalers 
and one who drafted the bill I wish to say emphatically, that 
no such object was in view. Had the federal bill, upon which 
the state bill was based, been passed, there would have been 
no trouble, for as I understand it, the ruling against the in¬ 
spection of nursery stock on dealers’ packing grounds is made 
because infested stock might be shipped into the state, and 
without the federal law Nevy York state is not protected from 
infested stock from without the state. 
“It is the spirit of the law that all nurserymen, wholesalers 
and dealers, wish to see enforced That spirit is the preven¬ 
tion of the dissemination of the San Jose scale. No one has 
worked harder than have I in the effort to keep Western New 
York nursery stock free from the scale. And the scale cannot 
be found on any of the stock in this section of the state. If 
some plan for releasing all stock that has been duly inspected 
this fall can be devised, I am sure that the law will be amended 
by the next legislature so that there shall be no ambiguity.” 
“Would it not have been better to have allowed the state 
bill to die when it was seen that the federal bill could not be 
passed at the last session of congress ?” was asked. 
“ It would, if we had known that the state law would be 
interpreted as it has been. But at the time the state bill 
was pending, we had no law to compel the destruction of stock 
infested with San Jose scale. This bill provided the remedy 
and it was therefore pushed to passage in the expectation that 
it would answer the purpose until the federal bill could 
become a law.” 
H. C. Peck, who is the inspector of nursery stock in seven 
counties in Western New York said: “ I have made a careful 
inspection of the nursery stock in my territory and I find no 
San Jose scale. The dealers are greatly disturbed over the 
ruling of the department that stock shall be inspected but 
once and only in nursery rows. I would like to see all accom¬ 
modated, but my duty is simply to follow the instructions of 
