THE NATIONAL 
NURSERYMAN 
159 
lions of valuable trees that should in strict accordance with law, be de¬ 
stroyed. Moreover, owing to the diverse climatic and industrial con¬ 
ditions of our country, and the lack of co-operation among the States, 
the various laws are so widely different in their requirements that the 
nurserymen are subjected to considerable annoyance and frequently to 
unnecessary loss. 
It certainly must be conceded that the emergencies that hastily called 
most of these laws into existence have been so relieved as to justify cer¬ 
tain ameliorating amendments. The sweeping requirement that an 
entire nursery should be condemned because a portion of it is found 
affected with a dangerous pest is no longer necessary, and the inspector 
should be given discretion ary power to deal with such cases insuch a 
manner as the conditions may warrant. If the entire nursery is hope¬ 
lessly contaminated, destroy it, but whenever sound healthy trees can be 
saved out of the wreck, they should be allowed to go on the market, pro¬ 
vided, of course, that the proper precautions are taken that only clean 
stock is allowed to go out. Moreover, a nurseryman situated in a neigh¬ 
borhood, where a given pest is already thoroughly distributed might be 
allowed to do a local business under less restraint than that imposed 
upon those liable to distribute the pest into new localities. In fact, 
when the speaker was charged with the enforcement of the Georgia law j 
it was his practice to permit the sale of stock from scale infested nur¬ 
series to orchardists on whose premises the pest already existed, the 
stock being first hand-sorted and fumigated. This again is a case in 
which the official 
inspector would 
need to use his own 
discretion, carefully 
considering all the 
accompanying cir¬ 
cumstances and 
conditions. The 
law should, there¬ 
fore, provide that 
the inspector’ in 
charge might pre¬ 
scribe certain con¬ 
ditions upon which 
he would grant his 
certificate, and fail¬ 
ure upon the part 
of the nurseryman 
to comply should 
constitute a viola¬ 
tion of the law. No 
legislative body 
can prescribe a set 
of regulations that will meet all the varying conditions as they 
arise in the field. 
ORCHARDISTS AS WELL AS NURSERYMEN NEED PROTECTION. 
It should be thoroughly understood, however, that the orchardists 
need a certain amount of protection, and as a rule the nurserymen have 
been strong advocates of reasonable measures to secure such protection, 
but the difficult question now is where to draw the line. Whatever rules 
may be adopted will require constant revision. New pests will con¬ 
stantly arise and have to be added to the “dangerously injurious list, 
and the old ones will be dropped from time to time as their nature and 
treatment becomes better known. 
DISEASES NEED FURTHER STUDY. 
In recent years crown gall has become one of the worst enemies with 
which the nurseryman have ever had to contend, and yet Mr. Hedgcock, 
of the Department of Agriculture, will tell you that his investigations 
begin to show that the ban may at least be raised irom one class ol these 
galls. It appears from his investigations that the apple crown gall is 
not a contagious disease, and does not materially injure the trees affected 
while crown gall of stone fruits is contagious and may seriously impair 
the health of the affected trees. Mr. Hedgcock is here to discuss this 
important problem himself, and I only mention it to show that a know¬ 
ledge of the nature of these troubles is absolutely essential to the intelli¬ 
gent enforcement of nursery regulations. In the absence ot this know¬ 
ledge, I think the orchardist should be given the benefit ol the doubt and 
have protection against diseases that threaten to become a menace to 
their business. In case of apple crown gall, the affected trees might 
thrive for ten years and then collapse, and until the investigation 
extends over a series of years sufficient to prove that such will not hap¬ 
pen, the safest plan is to discard all trees actually affected, but this 
should never interfere with the unrestricted distribution of the healthy 
stock from the same nursery. 
The yellows, group of diseases, including peach yellows, rosette and 
little peach, is another'group about which we know very little, and yet we 
know that each of these diseases may be communicated from one tree to 
another, and that a tree once affected never recovers. It has been 
shown definitely that these diseases are readily transmissable to nursery 
stock through buds taken from affected trees. Unfortunately, the early 
symptoms of the yellows and little peach are so obscure that even a 
careful nurseryman might unwittingly cut buds from affected trees and 
scatter the disease broadcast on his stock. Here is a case in which the 
inspector would be justified in absolutely witholding his certificate from 
a block of trees propagated with buds from a diseased orchard. It is 
important, therefore, for the inspector to know the source of the buds 
and grafts, and so far as possible the nurserymen should have his stock 
trees inspected before propagating from them. There are specific in¬ 
stances where trees have come down with yellows within three years 
after planting, the disease having apparently come from the nursery. 
GOOD SANITATION. 
Pear blight is a disease the nature of which is thoroughly understood. 
It is due to a speci¬ 
fic germ, which is 
readily communica¬ 
ted from tree to 
tree by bees and 
other insects, as 
well as by the prun¬ 
ing knife and other 
artificial agents. 
And yet we are not 
quite prepared to 
recommend a defi¬ 
nite set of regula¬ 
tions that would be 
expected to pre¬ 
vent the dissemina¬ 
tion of this much- 
dreaded pest. It is 
distributed 
throughout our 
country from coast 
to coast, and no 
doubt the nursery¬ 
men unwittingly aided in the widespread dissemination of this pest. 
Not until a few years ago did it appear on the Pacific coast, and it is 
now T so rampant in that section that it threatens the destruction of their 
entire pear industry. I think it not improbable that the immunity 
from blight which the California growlers enjoyed for so many years 
w'as due largely to the enforcement of strict quarantine regulations. 
However, the very fact that a disease is already widely distributed 
minimizes the importance of restrictive nursery regulations looking to 
its control. At present we can only advise that the nurseryman should 
be required to carefully remove all blighted portions of the diseased 
trees, and in severe cases to reject the tree. No tree actually beai.ng 
blighted wood should be allowed to leave the nursery, as such tree is 
foreordained to perish. 
reasonable legislation. 
It is evident, therefore, that the orchardists need reasonable legis¬ 
lative protection against certain insects and diseases liable to be dis¬ 
tributed on nursery stock, and at the same time these regulations must 
be of such a nature as not to require the useless destruction of good 
property. The great question is wdiere to draw the line. The truit 
growers are obliged to have this protection and they wall have to pay for 
it. At the 1901 meeting of the American Association of Nurserymen, 
Prof. Bailey said: “High priced trees, w r ithin reasonable limits,mean 
better trees, better care, and better fruit growing. ” 
—H. M. Simpson & Sons write that sales are coming in nicely tor 
fall, and it. looks as if they would have a fine fall trade. 
THE HARRISONS’ NURSERY “LAYING THEM BY.” 
The last time down the row. The part to the right is seeded to clover and sorghum for a winter coyer which was 
smoothed down by the plain wooden sled. The part at the left is unfinished as you will notice by the rough clods 
showing the difference between finished and unfinished. This is a block where 175,000 Ben Davis apples were planted. 
