146 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
INSPECTION METHODS. 
Actual Results as Shown by Illinois Report—Detailed Statement 
by State Entomologist—Distributing Costs—Actual Charges 
to Nurserymen—Enforcement of the Law—Substitution 
of Certificates—List of Accredited Inspectors in 
Twenty .eight States—General Conclusions. 
S. A. Forbes, state entomologist of Illinois, has submitted a 
detailed report to the governor, relating to the first annual 
inspection of nurseries in Illinois under th; act which went 
into effect on April 11 , 1899 . His experience is of interest by 
way of comparison with that in other states. 
It was found that there were 245 nurseries in Illinois; 225 
were covered for the year ended June 1 , 1900 , by certificate. 
A certificate was refused to the owner of but one of these 
nurseries and this because of the presence of the San Jose scale 
in a small lot of trees belonging to a dealer in nursery stock, 
and containing only trees left over from the sales of preceding 
year. The remaining 19 uncertified premises belong to nur¬ 
serymen who did not pay the expenses of inspection as re¬ 
quired by law, and who, if they made sales or shipped or 
delivered stock, did so in violation of the law. 
Occasionally, says Mr. Forbes, a nursery was in such condition 
that I was obliged to prohibit the sale of its stock until certain insect¬ 
icide measures had been applied under the supervision of an agent 
from my office. In these cases the nurseryman agreed in writing that 
the certificate finally issued should be attached only to specified parts 
of his stock to which no objection had been found or to such as had 
received the required treatment under the approval of an office assist¬ 
ant. 
DISTRIBUTING COSTS. 
As the law does not prescribe any method of distributing costs of 
inspection trips to individuals whose premises are inspected, I was ob¬ 
liged to assess these expenses according to my best judgment of what 
was fair and just to all concerned; and as the trips of my inspectors 
were not made separately for the purpose of inspecting individual nur¬ 
series, but were general trips in the course of which a large number 
were visited in succession, I was obliged to adopt some plan of division 
of the total expense of this common trip. After careful study of the 
workings of various possible plans, the following method was adopted: 
The inspection reports and bills of expense of each inspector were 
brought together every two weeks, and the total cost of inspection for 
this period, including the salary of the inspector, was distributed among 
the nurseries concerned in such a manner that all should share equally 
the cost of transportation and some other general expenses, while the 
cost of subsistence and the pay of the inspector were divided among 
them in proportion to the time required for the inspection of each 
nursery. 
Thus, if twenty nurseries were examined in these two weeks, each 
was charged with a twentieth part of the mere expense of traveling; 
and if the time spent in the inspection of a given nursery was, say. a 
fortieth of that spent in the inspection of all of them, then it was fur¬ 
ther charged with a fortieth of the salary and the cost of subsistence for 
the two weeks’ period. In this way such expenses as had no relation 
to the size and condition of the nursery were divided equally; such as 
had some such relation were divided proportionally; and the total cost 
of all the trips was fully and exactly provided for. 
This scheme worked upon the whole fairly well, but had one minor 
disadvantage in the fact that it was practically impossible to make 
itemized statements to individual nurseiymen, since the items would 
have included a complete exhibit of two weeks’ expense of travel, but 
few of which it would have been possible for the individual nursery¬ 
man in any way to verify. Bills were consequently rendered for the 
total sum due for each inspection, an explanation of the methods of its 
determination being also sent if any questions were raised, and the ac¬ 
count was certified by me officially as required by law. 
The actual charges for nurserymen for salaries and expenses of 
inspectors ranged from 75 cents to $36.90, the average charge being 
$5 77. The cost of printing, postage, clerical service, and supervisi 
was covered by general appropriations to the state entomologists’ office, 
other than those made in the horticultural inspection act This 
amounted to about $500, making the total cost of the first years’ in 
spection about $2000, an average of $8.16 per nursery. The inspection 
was made in July, August and September, 1899. 
The second annual inspection, made in 1900, was more quickly ac¬ 
complished. Instead of a two weeks’ distribution period, all subdivision 
and assessment of expenses was postponed until the end of the inspec¬ 
tion season. 
ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAW. 
Although it is made the duty of the state’s attorney to prosecute al 
violations of the Horticultural Inspection Act, this provision has been 
largely inoperative because no officer is charged with the duty of mak¬ 
ing complaint, securing evidence, and serving as prosecuting witness 
in the case, or provided with funds appropriated for these purposes. 
The private citizen, even though a competing nurseryman, has not 
sufficient personal interest in the enforcement of the law to be willing 
to subject himself to the odium, expense, and loss of time involved in 
court proceedings. Consequently, although a considerable number of 
the nineteen nurserymen who failed to take out certificates last year 
did undoubtedly violate the law, and a number of transportation com¬ 
panies and traveling agents of outside nurserymen and dealers presum¬ 
ably did so, prosecutions under the law, so far as known to me, were 
limited to two, one instituted by a nurseryman in Northern Illinois and 
the other by one of my own assistants. In the first case a Wisconsin 
nurseryman who had shipped and delivered stock in Illinois without a 
certificate, when brought before a justice pleaded guilty and paid the 
minimum fine. In the other case, a Chicago dealer having no nursery 
premises of his own had brought a considerable quantity of stock into 
the city, disposing of it from a sales-ground and delivering it to cus 
tomers without the use of a certificate of inspection. This case was 
brought to trial in a city j ustice court, the state’s attorney of Cook 
county prosecuting, and a conviction was obtained with an assessment 
of the minimum fine. 
SUBSTITUTION OF CERTIFICATE. 
Under the Inspection Act no Illinois nurseryman or seller of nursery 
stock is permitted to ship or deliver any such stock until he has placed 
on each package a copy of a certificate signed by some state or gov¬ 
ernment inspector certifying to the inspection of the contents of the 
package and to its freedom from dangerous insects and contagious 
plant diseases. This provision effects not only stock grown by the 
Illinois nurseryman on his own premises, but likewise that brought 
from without the state. As a great deal of the stock furnished to cus¬ 
tomers by nurserymen is so imported, and frequently from different 
states, bearing consequently, if inspected, certificates of as many 
different inspectors, this requirement seems at first inconvenient if not 
impracticable. To fill a small order of nursery stock it might be nec¬ 
essary to bring together into one package trees and plants from a num¬ 
ber of states and bearing as many different certificates, and the copying 
of these separate certificates and the attaching of one of each to every 
bundle would be embarrassing, confusing, and expensive. To obviate 
this difficulty I obtained by correspondence a list of the official inspect¬ 
ors of all the states in which an inspection system had been by law 
established, and published this list for the information of nurserymen, 
offering also to accredit inspection made by these official state inspect¬ 
ors by autho izing the substitution of my own certificate for theirs. 
This proposition was made in the following circular, under a clause of 
section 3 of the Illinois law: “ When nursery stock is shipped into 
this state accompanied by a certificate, as herein provided, it shall be 
held prima facie evidence of the facts therein stated.” 
Office of the State Entomologist, 
Urbana, III., July 1, 1899. 
To Illinois Nurserymen: The following is a list of accredited inspect¬ 
ors of nursery stock and other horticultural products: 
Alabama, F. S. Earle; California, Alexander Craw; Colorado. C. P. 
Gillette; Connecticut, W. E. Britton; Delaware, Wesley Webb; Florida, 
A. L. Quaintance, P. H. Rolfs; Georgia, W. M. Scott; Indiana, James 
Troup; Iowa, H. E. Summers; Kansas, Percey J. Parrott, E. A. Pope- 
noe, J S. Hunter; Kentucky, H. Garman; Maryland, W. G. Johnson, 
C. O. Townsend; Massachusetts, C. H. Fernald. H. T. Fernald; Mich¬ 
igan, D. W. Trine; Montana. I. D. O’Donnell, Robert A. Cooley. C. H. 
Campbell, W. II. Harlan, J. H. Edwards; Nebraska, Lawrence Bruner; 
New Jersey, John B. Smith; New York, C. A. Wieting; North Caro- 
