Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1912-12-10
LATEST PLANT
QUARANTINE Law
PROVES A LEMON
BY C. S. ALBERT

II ISpeclal StAr-buietln Correspondencel
I WASHINGTON, D. c., Nov. 2S.--
After working for more than three
\ years to induce Congress to pass a
/ plant quarantine law, the Department
i of Agriculture finds that it has been
4 given the same old variety of lemon,
in the way of a regulation done up
i in a fairly elaborate wrapping. The
j federal horticultural board has been
struggling for about two months to
get the enactment in working order,
j but is decidedly up against it owing
to the careful restrictions that Con.
gress has placed around the law. II
is realized by the scientists who have
the subject in hand that it is hopeless
to get any change made at the COM
ing short session of Congress, but
there is some hope that in the next
Congress some changes. in the law
may be made that will make it more
l practical. ...as.-s-s ss.s.ss-s. - ss
| Canada has plant quarantine law
4 that apparently works well and is alb
solutely simple. There are certain
! ports named where plants may be inn
ported. Here there are inspectors,
and If they find a shipment that is
diseased or infected 1t is turned back
If they give it a clean bill of health
| 1t is allowed to pass into the country,
and the material may be shipped any
where and nothing more heard of it.
u. s. Officials Hanpered
The new law that Congress has
passed does network that way. The
Department of Agriculture is not al
lowed to make inspections at the
ports and stop an infected 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
anywhere in the. interior.
Even this rather roundabout plan
would work fairly we'll IL all the
states had plant inspection service
Some of them havesa very efficient
service. In some it is not so good and
some have none at all In less than
tNo months since The law has been
working there have been two ship
ments that contained eggs Of the
gypsy moth, tree pest that already
has cost New England several mil.
lion dollars. Fortunately the ship
ments went to a state where there
was good system Of state inspection.
but If they had gone to 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 il it could
have beeHh10nesat al.
Congress- has provided very little |
money for TIE enforcement of the new
law, and the Treasury Department.
has SO ruled that no money, even for
clerk hire, can be spent in Washing.
ton, 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 position.
Opposed BY Plant Importers
1t is stated in the department that
the reason such patchwork law was
passed was from the opposition Of a
lot of the big plant importers. There
are a number of such firms, principal
ly in New York, who are not nursery
men at all, but merely 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, Baltimore, 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 certificate of inspec-
ton from the country of origin that
the plants are clean.
Experience is proving that many of
these certificates are absolutely
worthless. and ii infected plants go
to a state where there is no inspec
ton immense damage is likely to re
suit at any moment