the fflational IHurseryman. 
FOR GROWERS AND DEALERS IN NURSERY STOCK 
The National Nurseryman Publishing Co., Incorporated 
Vol. XXX. HATBORO, PENN A., MARCH 1922 No. 3 
Are our Fruit and Grain Exports in Danger? 
By J ohn Kingdon Smith 
Plant diseases and insects, foreign and domestic, 
yearly destroy immense quantities of garden, farm and 
forest products. The study of this subject has led to 
the discovery that insects and plant diseases prevailing 
in one country will occasionally establish themselves in 
another country and due probably to the absence of 
natural enemies or restraining influences, will gain con¬ 
siderable headway. Both this country and Europe can 
point to enormous losses resulting from such invasions. 
It has come to be accepted as gospel truth that plants 
and plant products are the chief means of introduction 
of harmful agents from one country to another. 
In America, the task of protecting the crops of the 
nation against foreign invaders is entrusted to the Fed¬ 
eral Horticultural Board. Until recent years the accept¬ 
ed means of protection consisted of field inspections, 
regulations and health certificates as well as careful in¬ 
spection of foreign plant shipments, and quarantines in 
case of heavy or particularly dangerous infestations. 
Under such protection a large margin of safety can be 
established, at the same time allowing horticultural and 
agricultural products to move fairly and freely to and 
from our country. 
There are, fortunately, no known means by which 
plants, fruit or seeds can be made absolutely free and 
clean from plant diseases, no matter whether the pro¬ 
duct is of United States or foreign origin. Since this 
is an undisputable truth it should follow that if Europe 
is willing to take our products under this risk of in¬ 
fections, we should be willing to take theirs. However, 
the Federal Horticultural Board does not feel that way 
about it. It has issued quarantine No. 37 which forbids 
the importation of large classes of plants and plant tiro- 
ducts from nearly all foreign countries, and it has an¬ 
nounced as its fixed intention to go much further as 
soon as it can possibly do so. The Federal Horticultural 
Board either overlooks our own large exports of plant 
products, or it assumes that foreign countries have got 
to take our plant products while we can safely refuse 
to take theirs. As a rule, however, business is not con¬ 
ducted on such a basis for any length of time 
The Federal Horticultural Board attempts to justify 
its policy by pointing to the many harmful agents exist¬ 
ing abroad and not yet introduced here, and by refer¬ 
ring to the fact that most European countries at one 
time or another had or still have laws on their books 
prohibiting the importation of American living plants 
into these countries. It is, however, well to explain in 
this connection that such laws were enacted during the 
time that a very dangerous virulent vineyard disease 
raged in California and all but destroyed that young in¬ 
dustry. Alarmed by the intensity of the epidemic, Eur¬ 
opean countries, with France and Germany in the lead, 
passed laws that no living plants could be shipped from 
America to these countries. The panic in Europe was so 
great that France and Germany forced their neighbor¬ 
ing countries to adopt similar measures or suffer the 
penalty of also seeing their products barred from those 
two countries. Notwithstanding these severe actions, 
the French vineyards suffered badly from the Philox- 
era; the disease slipped across the ocean anyway. To 
America these restrictions caused little or no inconven¬ 
ience for the reason that there simply was no living 
plants export of any consequence, and after the epi¬ 
demic in California had run its course, the quarantine 
law^s in Europe were allowed to become non-operative. 
The vital difference between the European action of 
20 years ago and the Federal Horticultural Board’s 
Quarantine No. 37 lies in the fact that the latter is dir¬ 
ected against latent insect pests and diseases while 
Europe temporarily quarantined against a specific fear¬ 
ful epidemic. As to the Federal Horticultural Board’s 
contention that America is more susceptible to foreign 
infestations than Europe is to our native plant pests, 
that is pure fiction. We have already presented the Old 
World with four or five of our Horticultural and Agri¬ 
cultural grave diggers, and we have a long waiting list 
of pests which are ready to invade Europe. Still, the 
European countries at present depend entirely upon 
their internal phytopathological service to protect their 
crops. They have placed no obstacles in the way of our 
plants products exported to them. 
It is a matter of common knowledge in European and 
American horticultural circles that Quarantine No. 37 is 
responsible for the almost complete extinction of the 
Belgian plant industry and for the serious crippling of 
Dutch, French and English plant exports to the United 
States. Grievous losses have been sustained in those 
countries due to our exclusion policy. Much bitterness 
is kept alive in the affected trade circles abroad not only 
by what we did, but also by our threatening attitude to 
what little of foreign plant products is still allowed to 
he imported here. Retaliation is being spoken of in 
more than one country today and may sooner or later 
show its ugly face to our exports. But that is not by 
any means the worst aspect of the situation. 
The exclusion principle, however wonderful defen¬ 
sive weapon as it appears to be to the eye of the scien¬ 
tist. is a two-edged sword of Damocles. 
Due to the greatly advertised action of the Federal 
