Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-10-28
aeli5eellanruus Rradins.
OUR LOSS FROM PESTS.
4o0,O0o,ooO Annually Eaten Up BY
Insects.

pernicious varieties have many, and
millions of the most destructive sort
inhabit the forest, the orchard and the
truck garden. OF the no legged KIND
there is our own peach brown rot, and
the white pine rust of Europe, while
of those many legged we have already
with us the imported codling moth,
which costs the country $15,000,OO0 q
year, and on the other side OF the
water there ravages periodically the
''nonne" moth, which like all predace-
Gus creatures is ever watching it's Op-
portunity to emigrate to fresh fields
and victims new.
One of our national responsibilities
is first to weave such mesh Of legis-
lation that these unwelcOme strangers
shall be held up to inspection, and Sec
ond to appropriate funds to provide
competent inspectors who recognize
these incomers. Why this is a respon-
sibility of the gravest Importance,
commensurate with that Of sitting the
raw materials of citizenship, can be
shown by parading some facts and fig
ures of recent scientific history.
The three fates who have the weav-
ing of this web of legislation in their
hands are the United States depart
ment of agriculture, the house of COM
mittee on agriculture and the asso-
citation of importing nurserymen. For
two or three years these three bodies
have held occasional weaving circles.
The web is not yet woven, though the
pattern is about selected, and perhaps
another session of congress Will give
the unfinished product to the market.
The fates in the case have not found
it easy to pull together. One interest
Is apt to draw a little harder on one
thread than is good for the pattern.
JJp to date this web, by name the
Simmons bill, is the best legislation to
prevent the Importation of insect pests
and plant diseases that has ever been
considered in congress. The bill prob
ably would be operative now had not
the activities of the late session been
punched into the concluding few
weeks. 1t was framed by the bureau
of entomology, the house committee is
friendly to it. and the nurserymen balK
at only one clause.
What sort of a tangle will the visit
ing insect meet when the Simmons bill
takes effect? To begin with, when the
box in which he sleeps arrives at its
destination and he is brought forth in
to daylight, together with the plant or
his abode, he will find a cold, scientific
eye gazing into his. Thus is the be-
ginning of his career in his adopted
country, also his ending. There will
be no more underground ways by
which he can elude the vigilance OF
science. The travels Of the marauding
worm and the insidiOus fungus will, by
tie operation of this bill. be subjected
40 a. lmelight Of information and reg
ulation.
Hereafter it shall he unlawful for any
person to import nursery stock from
abroad without a special permit from
the United states department of agri-
culture. Before the permit is granted
the department must know how much
and what kind of nursery stock Is TO
be imported, the country and district
where it is grown abroad, name and
address of shipper, approximate date
of nd u-ha
whom it will be consigned. The trans
portation company must notify the de-
partment upon the arrival of the stock,
which must be accompanied by GER
tificate of inspection made by a for
eign expert before the stock was ship
ped, certifying that it is apparently
free from infcstatiOn or infection. The
stock will be subject to inspection by
scientific authorities on the premises of
the person to whom it is shipped, and
if infected it may be fumigated at the
eypense of the owner or agent, or IL
necessary, destroyed.
So far all the fates agree. The
one provision over which the entomol-
ogists and nurserymen cross blades is
that which empowers the secretary of
agriculture to lock in hard and fast
quarantine any foreign district in
which plant disease or devouring in
sect is raging This would relieve the
state of New York from the unequal
fight it has been and is waging with
the white pine rust. That is, the fight
is equal enough 50 far as preventing
the disease from establishing itself
within the state is concerned, but me
Qual in the effort to eliminate the pos
sibility of infection in other parts of
the country. White pine stock bearing
the rust may still elude the state in
spectors and go into private hands or
may go through the state to some 9TH
er state where the inspection service is
not so efficient.
This disease is. so far as is known,
actively established in only one dis
trict of Germany, from which most or
our white pine seedlings are imported
White pine culture has been abandon
ed i'm Holland. as we'll as in parts Of
Germany and Russia. solely because Of
the grip of this fungus. 1t has been
imported Into this country in New
York. the northwest and in parts OF
New England. but has not yet spread
extensively. 1t threatens the eastern
and western white pines and also the
sugar pine; i'm fact, all the five leaved
varieties. Last year the state depart
ment of agriculture Of New York de-
stroyed 100000 German white pine
seedlings in the nursery at Lake Clear
and the United States department has
destroyed two other private importa-
tions. All this trouble and danger
might have been avoided had the quar-
antine power been at the discretion Of
the government. Quarantine power in
this case is especially needed. as the
disease cannot he discovered until it
has progressed to an advanced stage.
DR.. l.. O. Howard. chief of the bureau
Of entomology. estimates that we are
suffering damage to the amount of
500. OOO. 900 annually from pests that