Evening star., 1912-11-22
SAY LAW |SALEM0N
Congressional Enactment Re-
garding Quarantine of Plants.
PROVIDES NO INSPECTION
Horticultural Board Hampered by
Restrictions Imposed by
Lawmakers.

| After working for more than three years
TO induce Congress to pass a plant quar-
antine law. the Department of Agriculture
finds that it has been given the same old
variety of lemon" in the way of a regu-
lation done up in a fairly elaborate wrap
ping. The federal horticultural board has
been struggling for about two months to
get the enactment in working order. but
is decidedly up against it owing to the
careful restrictions that Congress has
placed around the law. 1t is realized by
the scientists who have the subject in
hand that it is hopeless to get any change
made at the coming short session. of Con-
gress, but there is some hope that in the
next Congress some changes inI the law
may be made that will make i: more
practical.
Canada has a plant quarantine law that
apparently works we'll and is absolutely
simple There are certain ports named
where plants may be imported. Here
there are inspectors. and if they find a
shipment is diseased or infected it is
turned back. If they give it a clean bill
of health it is allowed to pass into the
country, and the material may be shipped
anywhere and nothing more heard of it.
U. S. Officials Hampered.
The new law that Congress has passed
does not work that way. The Department
of Agriculture is not allowed to make in
spections at the ports and stop an in
tected shipment 1t is merely allowed to
report to the various states that such a
shipment has been received and the state
is supposed to look after the individual
packages after the shipment is split up
and sent to the private purchasers any
where in the interior.
Even this rather roundabout plan
would work fairly well if all the states
had plant inspection service Some of
them have a very efficient service. In
some ii is not good and some have
none at all In less than two months
since the law has been working there
have been two shipments that contained
eggs of the gypsy moth, tree pest that
already has cost New England several
m mjlion dollars. Fortunately the ship
ments went to a state where there was a
good system of state inspection, but if
they had gone to a state where there was
no such system the first that would have
been known of the pest would have been
when there was a new focus of infection
established that it would have cost at
least a million dollars to wipe out, If it
could have been done at all.
Congress has provided very little
money for the enforcement of the new
law. and the Treasury Department has
SO ruled that no money, even for clerk
hire, can be spent IN washington, where
the bulk of the work has to be done. AS
the work is very largely clerical it places
the board in a rather embarrassing posi-
ton.
Opposed by Plant Importers.
1t is stated in the department that the
reason such a patchwork law was passed
was from the opposition of lot of the
big plant importers There are number
of such firms. principally in New York,
who are not nurserymen at all, but mere
Il plant brokers. and all they care about
is getting plants into the country and
selling them through the various states.
The experts say that five ports of entry
for plant shipments would amply cover
the whole country-say, New York, Bal
timore. New Orleans, San Francisco and
Seattle With efficient inspectors there.
infected shipments could be turned back
| or destroyed. AS it is. all the plant
| broker has to do is to get a certificate of
| inspection from the country of origin
| that the plants are clean.
| Experience is proving that many OF
| these certificates are absolutely worth
| less, and If infected plants go to a state
! where there is no inspection immense
damage is likely to result at any moment