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THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
should he either protected by quarantine or a tariff on 
their linished products. 
"Tlie present tariff affords little or no protection. We 
believe that an embargo should be placed on every kind of 
plant that is infected with disease or insects as every nur¬ 
seryman knows the cost of keeping his stock clean and 
saleable.” 
Another Aew Jcrsc'y Nnrseryman writes;— 
"We think the present national quarantine regulatiofj, 
if properly einorccd, is strong enough to keep out all 
plant diseases and it it is not, it could easily be mad(! so 
by Congress prohibiting the importation by juivate in¬ 
dividuals, winch is the source of most ot the foreign 
plant disease's that have lound a lodgment here and then 
10 eniaige the powers of the Agricultural Department so 
that they eould come to the aid of those States whose 
I Linds lor liie employment of inspectors are not large 
enough to allow for the employment of adequate forces 
to make close inspection.”' 
A Minnesota nurseryman is of the opinion, that insect 
pests and disease are as natural as any other part of 
creation and that as long as the world lasts epidemics 
w ill visit the different localities in spite of quarantines. 
A minority opinion comes from Minnesota favoring a 
quarantine, not so much how^ever on account of danger 
of introducing disease and insects along with the nursery 
stock, but because the stock can be grown in this country. 
These opinions and others are all worthy of serious 
consideration and give profitable food for thought. 
“Editor, The National Nurseryman,” 
Flourtown, Penna. 
Dear Sir:— 
We have not had opportunity until now to answer 
yours of March 9th inquiring our ideas relative to the 
projiosed Federal Quai'antine against imported nursery 
stock. It looks as if we nurserymen were to be legis¬ 
lated out of business entirely, sooner or later. We don’t 
know'^ just what we have ever done to deserve it, but 
between the new State ayid Federal Law^s that are 
constantly being enacted, or agitated, it is becoming more 
and more dillicult to carry on a perfectly inoffensive nur¬ 
sery business. It seems the fashion to make the nursery¬ 
men the goat for everything that happens to trees and 
plants, or that might, could, would or should happen to 
them. Apparently the chief reason that these laws are 
direch'd at the nurseryman, is because he is such an easy 
mark. He has let himself be gradually forced into a 
position where he has a lot of State and Federal officials 
riding on his neck, and they think it an occupation so 
necessary to the w^elfare of the “dear peepul” that they 
stick as tightly as Sinbad’s, “Old Man of the Sea,” and 
refuse to he shaken off. Doctors hunt out some new 
diseases now and then and make a hig noise about them 
so that we shall projierly appreciate the importance of the 
medical profession. Ministers are sometimes inclined, 
unwittingly perhaps, to put excessive stress on our sins 
of ommission and commission—not beacuse we are so 
very depraved and wicked, but because it is a part of their 
job. Bug men and near-scientists must get up scare 
headlines over the way the wicked nurseryman is dis¬ 
tributing Blister Bust, Black Wheat Bust, Scale Insect, 
Brown Tail Moth, and w hatnot, or they could not continue 
to hold dowm their positions. We are certainly the 
victims of over-zealous activities. 
We have yet to learn that it w as a nurseryman who 
first imported Brown Tail Moth, Gypsy Moth, San Jose 
Scale, White Pine Blister Bust, and yet we are blamed 
for most of the ills that plant life is heir to. If the bug 
men and scientists must be provided with jobs, let them 
continue to inspect us. They only do what every first class 
nurseryman would do for himself, anyway. We, all of 
us, want to keep our stock clean and healthy—most of us 
wmuld and must do it to hold our trade, regardless of 
official control and assistance. Beasonable inspection 
work is constructive and helpful—not destructive. It 
has compelled the shiftless few among nurserymen m 
look after the cleaning up of their nurseries, wdiich wnis 
most desirable and commendable, but is there any 
common sense or justice in making the nurseryman clean 
out the scale from his place and then permitting his 
farmer neighbor to keep an acre or tw o of neglected 
orchard in a condition which provides a constant renewal 
of infestation. The nurseryman is the goat because he is 
numerically w eak and he is easily gotten at. He is under 
control because he has manoeuvered into a position 
where he can’t carry on business without official per¬ 
mission. 
In this state it is now proposed to absolutely prohibit 
the growung or selling of all varieties of currants or 
gooseberries, except under special license, because of the 
alleged spread of White Pine Blister Bust thru the distri¬ 
bution of currants and gooseberries. And this without 
any real demonstration that currants or gooseberries 
in a dormant condition ,—the only condition in which they 
are shipped —can carry the disease. Indeed, experiments 
conducted by Professor Stewart of the Geneva Agricul¬ 
tural Experimental Station indicated that black currants 
badly infested with White Pine Blister Bust one season, 
showed no trace of it next season, even though placed 
under conditions particularly favorable to its development. 
The Legislative Committee of the New York State Nur¬ 
serymen’s Association has had to fight this proposition in 
Albany just recently. Somehow^, these things generally 
come up right in the Spring shipping season when the 
average nurseryman is most crazy with other troubles 
and anxieties. Is there any justice in autocratically 
wiping out the nurseryman’s business in currants and 
gooseberries, and then taking no steps whatever to erad¬ 
icate the wild currants and gooseberries which are 
scattered thru the forests and, being in proximity to the 
pines are a much greater menace to them than nursery 
or garden plants ? 
I have gotten a good w^ays from the subject of the pro¬ 
posed exclusion of foreign nursery stock, and yet it is all 
pertinent to the topic, too, for such exclusion would, in 
my humble opinion, be the final act of unreasonable mid 
unfair legislation needed to wind up the nursery busi¬ 
ness in this country. Our raw material in the form of 
seedlings and young stock comes from Europe and it is 
yet to be demonstrated that some very necessary kinds 
