THE NATIONAL NURvSERYMAN 
335 
THE LAW AND THE NURSERYMAN 
A Californian^s Point of View 
LEONARD COATES, California 
I realize the difficulties that lie in the way of even an 
approximately acceptable presentation of this subject by a 
nurseryman before a fruit growers’ convention, although, 
and I am not alone by any means, any money I have ever 
made in the nursery business has been, and is now, invested 
mainly in orchards. 
Herein, I would venture to say, is the crucial point affect¬ 
ing adversely consistent and harmonious action in legislative 
work assuming to be for the betterment of the fruit-growing 
and other horticultural interests of the State—the acceptance 
of the erroneous postulate, ‘ ‘that the interests of the fruit¬ 
grower and of the nurseryman are not mutual and are, there¬ 
fore, antagonistic.” 
The remarks I propose to make, then, will be more in 
the nature of a plea for harmony,—a realization of the fact 
that the two interests are one, and that either one, 
the nursery or the orchard, is dependent upon the 
other. 
The whole question must be viewed and worked out dis¬ 
passionately, commencing with a right conception of justice, 
or, in other words, a principle. ‘‘Nothing arbitrary, nothing 
artificial, can endure,” says Emerson in his essay on ‘‘Com¬ 
pensation,” and there is much more in this essay which might 
be pondered before laws are hastily enacted. Some may say 
that the transcendentalism of Emerson is far removed from 
the simple proposition of insect control, but you will find, I 
think, upon investigation, that laws often fail, or become a 
dead letter because conceived in error and brought forth in 
injustice. 
Sometime ago an editorial appeared in Saturday Evening 
Post from which I clip the following paragraph: 
‘‘Constitutionally speaking, any state has an unquestioned 
right to be as backward as it pleases ;■ but the strictly consti¬ 
tutional view of the relations between state and federal 
government is rapidly giving way. Not only does Congress 
steadily gain a wider field for direct legislation, but there is a 
constant demand that it help indirectly to do what it has 
no power to accomplish by direct act. In other words, the 
United States, like the industrial companies, tends more 
and more to consolidate.” 
The enactment of laws presupposes a knowledge of condi¬ 
tions and facts requiring such laws, and we know only too 
well that in horticultural state legislation this is not so. 
Such laws are too often added to the Statute Book without 
due consideration, and prompted by sundry ‘‘resolutions” 
forwarded as an expression of opinion by those interested, 
but which opinion is apt to be prejudiced and sadly ill- 
considered. 
It would be vastly easier to pass laws and administer 
them forbidding a man to have in his family or in his employ 
any person to ‘‘take a cold” or have a tooth ache, than to 
legislate for the eradication of any insect, or any plant 
disease, or even for the control of the same, except in a 
comparative degree. 
If a system of State laws on the Control of Insects or 
Plant Disease is ineffectual, because impossible, how much 
more so when counties pass ordinances which no one would 
pretend to say are even constitutional? With equal right 
may a school district or the owner of a town lot seek the 
enactment of laws to prohibit the entry of whatever might 
affect plant life adversely. 
And what is it that so influences public opinion that makes 
the passing of such laws possible? It is, largely, the publish¬ 
ing of certain mathematical propositions depicting the money 
value in losses sustained through the depredations of insect 
pests and plant diseases, amounting to many hundreds of 
millions, if not billions of dollars annually. 
But, has it ever occurred to the reader of such sensational 
items that the saving of all of this loss in crops would mean, 
so far as money is concerned, absolute ruin to the producer, 
and therefore, as all wealth depends upon the cash value of 
the productivity per acre, all others would be involved in 
disaster? There are not railroads or ships to carry a tenth 
part of such crops, and speculators would control ‘‘hold 
overs” for all time, so that no recovery to a normal condition 
would be forthcoming. 
‘‘Public opinion,” so-called, is often expressed hysteria, 
and resulting action generally unwarranted. Insects live 
upon plant life; it is no less true that birds live upon insect 
life. It is quite as possible to ‘eradicate’ birds as it is to 
‘eradicate’ the buffalo, a deed almost consummated. Birds 
are killed as ‘sport (?),’ as the farmer’s enemy (?), for food, 
to adorn the woman of fashion, and, wantonly. It is the 
old story of the spigot and the bung hole, or, in other words, 
‘‘penny wise and pound foolish.” In the science, so-called, 
of farm economics, one class of instructors will dwell upon 
the necessity for bird protection to save crops from destruc¬ 
tion; another, supported by equally incontestible figures 
will show that predacious and parasitic insects must be relied 
upon to control or keep in check those upon which they 
naturally prey; while still another class will prove to the 
satisfaction of their students that the application of poisons 
to insect pests, either by contact, or assimilated as food, is 
absolutely necessary; or, what may be termed a sub-class 
will insist upon the method of fumigation as more effectual 
than any other. 
These facts prove that the endeavor to control plant 
disease is no more scientific than is the practice of medicine 
upon human beings, because it is ever changing. No formula 
used and recommended as an insecticide twenty years ago is 
now used. The strong acids or alkalies included in those 
accepted today destroy beneficial insects as well as those 
