THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
279 
$5, and the amount must accompany the application. On 
receipt of this certificate or license, the employer is authorized 
to furnish each of his agents a duplicate of the certificate. 
These duplicates can be made by the employer in his office. 
Second—Permit tags must be attached to each and every 
bundle, bale or box of nursery stock shipped into the state. 
These permit tags can be obtained by addressing the state 
entomologist at Morgantovm, W. Va., at the following prices, 
postpaid: 
$1.00 per 100 tags 
$2.00 per 500 tags 
$3.50 per 1000 tags 
Check must accompany the order for the tags. 
Third—In addition to the permit tag fimiished by the 
state entomologist, each and every bundle, bale or box 
shipped into the state must have attached a copy of the 
inspection certificate of the state from which the shipment 
originated. 
This seems to be a fair and reasonable law, except as to the 
matter of license fee. It is an open question whether such a 
requirement is constitutional, but the amount involved is not 
large, and it is doubtful whether the Association would be 
warranted in contesting the law. 
State of Maine 
Your Committee was instructed to bring a case, testing 
the law of the State of Maine which provided for an agents’ 
license fee of $10 per year, such fee to be paid by the agent 
before beginning work, and, if the law were enforced, obliging 
payment by every agent before commencing operations, even 
though he made no sales. The law was tested, and the 
highest court in the State of Maine decided in favor of the 
nurserymen’s position. 
The substance of the decision was that business done 
through agents was not “selling goods’’ in Maine, but that 
the agent simply solicited an order which was sent to his 
principal in New York State for approval or rejection, and 
that if the order were accepted by the principal the actual 
sale was made in New York and not in Maine, and that as the 
law required a license for selling in the state of Maine it was 
not applicable to agents or nurserymen located outside of 
that state. 
Another point was that the license fee was a tax on inter¬ 
state commerce, and therefore unconstitutional. 
During the last winter’s session of the Legislature, the law 
was amended, or a new law passed, to get away from the un¬ 
constitutional features of the preceding law. The new law 
reduces the license fee to $5 and makes it apply to agents 
“who sell or solicit orders in the state of Maine,’’ and further 
provides that the fees received for licenses are to be expended 
for the piurpo e of inspecting nursery stock received in the 
state from other states. 
It seems to be the opinion of oiir attorneys that any state 
has a right to inspect stock coming into it, and to charge a 
reasonable fee for doing so, and that the provision in the new 
law appropriating fees received for the purpose of inspection, 
does away with the unconstitutional feature of the previous, 
law which was regarded as a tax on interstate commerce, and 
that the application of the license feature to agents “who 
solicit orders in the state of Maine’’ gets around the other 
unconstitutional point in the previous law. 
There is still one debatable section in the new law which 
excepts from the license provision “growers of nursery stock.’’ 
The question is whether this exception would also apply to 
the agents of such growers. Our attorney’s opinion is that 
this is a very close question, and one which might be decided 
either way, and as the license fee is small and the law other¬ 
wise not very objectionable, it is doubtful whether it would be 
wise to incur the expense of another test case. 
State of Pennsylvania 
Within a few days I have received copy of a bill introduced 
in the Pennsylvania Legislature in March, 1913, which is 
intended to provide a method whereby the planter or grower 
in Pennsylvania may be protected from damages resulting 
from planting trees untrue to name. In substance, the law 
provides that any niu'seryman may file with the Secretary of 
Agriculture a bond of $2,000 or more, which bond shall be 
held for indemnity in case any grower can show that he has 
been damaged by falsely labeled trees, and if he can show such 
damage he will be entitled to $1.00 per tree for each year 
between the date of planting and the date of fruiting. It 
provides, however, that before such method goes into opera¬ 
tion against the nmseryman that the purchaser shall have 
informed the seller, before buying, that he wishes to buy in 
accordance with this indemnity plan, and at the same time 
the buyer must inform the secretary of Agricultiu'e of the 
niunber and kind of trees that he has purchased, and the 
name and address of the nurseryman. It is then the duty 
of the Secretary of Agriculture, provided the nurseryman has 
filed such a bond, to furnish the nurseryman, at the expense 
of the purchaser, with indemnity tags, to be placed on the 
trees when they are shipped to the purchaser, and when the 
purchaser receives the trees and plants them he is then to 
remove the labels and attach them to a stake driven into the 
ground beside the trees and then within a week from the time 
of planting the purchaser must send to the Secretary of 
Agriculture, and also to the nurseryman, a chart of the 
orchard, showing the exact location of each tree; this chart to 
be checked up by an inspector of the Agricultural Depart¬ 
ment within six months from time of planting. When the 
labeled trees first produce fruit, if the owner doubts the 
accmacy of the labeling, he must notify the Secretary of 
Agriculture, who shall cause the bearing tree to be inspected, 
and if anything wrong is found in it the orchardist can bring 
suit and collect against the bond for an amount equal to $i .00 
per tree for each year since the original planting. 
There is nothing in the law which compels the nurseryman 
to give bond or thus insure his trees, but the law makes it the 
duty of the Secretary of Agriculture “to report to all in¬ 
quirers and make special published mention, at least once per 
year, of all nurserymen who shall take advantage of this 
opportunity to bond themselves in Pennsylvania, and no 
grower shall make claim for damages, under this act, who has 
not purchased his trees of a properly bonded dealer.’’ 
The last paragraph shows what they are trying to do. In 
plain English, they propose to establish a list of “good 
