Gbe IRational nurseryman. 
FOR GROWERS AND DEALERS IN NURSERYSTOCK 
The National Nurseryman Publishing Co., Incorporated 
Vol. XXVIII. HATBORO, PENN A. FEBRUARY 1920 N^7~2 
Nurseryman, Demand Real Evidence that Barberry Spreads Rust 
It seems to me that it is time for the nurserymen of 
this country to make a fight against the continued inter¬ 
ference of various Departments of Agriculture with the 
nursery business. We all know what has been done rela¬ 
tive to bringing into this country of certain ornamentals. 
Good intelligent inspection would have guarded against 
any danger of plant disease. In fact the government 
could have had its men across the water right on the 
shipping grounds where every plant could be inspected 
as well as the soil. 
A few wise men mostly under thirty, many just past 
twenty-one, after a year or two at some experiment sta¬ 
tion presume to tell men of fifty and over who have 
handled plants all their lives that certain things happen 
and that the only way to remedy the matter is to do it 
their way. Often times they know nothing about the 
matter but take it for granted that because some fellow 
who had a hobby ten or a hundred years ago in some 
foreign country or other state, knew what he was talk¬ 
ing about and that they should follow in their footsteps. 
It is an easy matter for a federal or state official to 
make most people believe that some thing will harm them 
or make them believe it will do them good if it costs him 
nothing and can be done at the other fellow’s expense. 
But tell him there is a little expense attached to it, even 
though it be but five dollars and he will have to be 
shown. The farmers are being worked this way relative 
to the common barberry getting rust on wheat and I be¬ 
lieve that an attempt will be made in Ohio soon to get a 
law enacted that will compel people to spoil their plant¬ 
ings by digging out the purple barberry. We have not 
enough color in this country as it is. and surely nothing 
can take the place of the purple barberry as it is the only 
purple shrub, that is purple for any length of time, but if 
there was no doubt that it caused the rust that appears 
upon wheat, most people would not object to removing it. 
But there is a doubt and more than that a bigger reason 
to believe that the common barberry has nothing to do 
with wheat rust than that it is responsible for it. Many 
nurserymen were farmers before they went into the nur- 
serv business and they knew somethine 1 about wheat 
»’ust thirtv to fortv years as-o. Does it not seem strange 
to them that they or their neighbors werp bothered with 
wheat rust when such a thing as a barberry plant was 
not known. They can find farmers in manv localities 
that will tell them of the trouble they had with rust sev¬ 
eral times as far back as thirty years ago and that they 
had no harberrv. their neighbors had none ant tl^re were 
no shrubs on or near the farm except a rose bush, a lilac 
or snirea. 
Now nurserymen, even though you never intend to 
handle another plant of common barberry, here is your 
chance to show that the various departments of agricul¬ 
ture as well as the federal horticulture board can make 
mistakes which cost you money and work a hardship on 
other people, as well as preventing this country from be¬ 
coming as well known for its landscaped grounds as the 
several countries of Europe are. This should not be such 
a difficult matter to accomplish. 
Do it by showing there was wheat rust before there 
was barberry. Show that it takes rust weather to pro¬ 
duce rust. That the various departments make mistakes 
the same as other people. That it is not long since some 
“expert” said that the trees in some of our large eastern 
cities would have to be destroyed or that they would 
spread a certain scale all over the country, but that a 
means was found to combat the scale even on trees over 
one hundred feet tall. Show that not long ago. “experts” 
told farmers to kill their hogs when they got the cholera 
and then to burn them. That “experts” said not long ago 
that one who was infected with tuberculosis, was sure to 
die before he was fifty, but that we know today they were 
all wrong. They were telling what their grandfathers 
told and believed what their grandfathers believed. 
The thing for the nurserymen to do is to show to the 
farmer that there are many localities where they have 
wheat rust nearly every year. Most old farmers will tell 
you that that is due to weather conditions but the experts 
will tell them that there is a rusty barberry in the neigh¬ 
borhood. If the reply is that they had rust thirty years 
ago. the “experts” will answer that some one unknown 
to them had barberry in the neighborhood. 
In the western plains where they raise wheat by the 
hundred or more acre fields they seem to have more rust 
than many other places, still there are but a few scatter¬ 
ing houses, around which there grows not a single shrub 
often times no lawn. In many places no shrub of any 
kind within ten miles and especially was this true fifteen 
years ago. but the “experts” will say the rust will travel 
a hundred miles and skip places where thev do not often 
have rust and light upon these particular fields. 
A great lot of immigrants from Denmark and Sweden 
came into our northwestern country, mostlv into Minne¬ 
sota. They told about Denmark passing a law requiring 
the common barberry to be eradicated in Denmark. Min¬ 
nesota passed a law requiring its removal because Den¬ 
mark did and then came Montana, because Minnesota had 
set the example and still another state because Montana 
had set the example. 
They say that since the removal of barberry in Den¬ 
mark they have not had a single outbreak of rust in the 
country. They do not go on and tell that in this great 
