Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-07-13
QUARANTINE FOR
BUGS AND PLANTS
New Safeguard Established
Against Entry Into Coun-
try Through the Mails.

Bugs and plant diseases that expect
to stow away in the mails and thus
gain entry to this country to raise Cain
with the farming interests are now con-
fronted at the Department of Agricul-
ture with cu-de-sac from which there
is no exit except through the crematory.
The new safeguard is the Quarantine
room that has just been established
In the office o. seed and plant introduce
ton. 1t has worked only once in the few
days since 1t was built. That was over
a shipment of South American potatoes.
G. H. Wright, one of the agricultural
explorers. has been gathering new va
rieties of strange potatoes in the Andes
His first shipment was put through the
separator and enough harmful bugs
were extracted to have made the potato
crop of the country look like five-cent
order Of hashed brown.
The quarantine room is a harmless
looking structure. 1t is just a little
glass-inclosed cage about by II feet
in one of the big Office rooms Of the
new building on 18th street 1t is bug
proof and glass inclosed. except for
wire netting over the door and windows
fortY-mesh netting-almost as close as
cheese cloth and too small to allow the
passage of anything much bigger than
a
that is mailed to the United States has
to be addressed to the Secretary of Agri-
culture and go to this room. This IS
the result of the recently passed federal
plant quarantine law
International Postal Rule.
The United States belongs to the In
ternational Postal Union. POstmasters
all over the world will not receive plant
Co.
are consigned TO this quarantine room
The scheme, in fact. worked too well
at first and a lot Of the official agricul-
tural explorers In foreign lands, where
there was not an efficient system of
plant inspection. found they could not
partment had stepped in and assured the
director of the International Postal Tn
ion that it was all right and that the
little quarantine room was working.
The new establishment is fitted with a
couple of tables. microscopes and tight
covered tin ash can. Whatever in the
way of foreign plant specimens is re-
ceived has to go first to this room in the
original package. There the specimens
are opened and inspected Bugs. wrap
pers and everything but the plants and
their labels consigned to the ash
can. At intervals this is taken out and
the contents burned.
If the plants are under suspicion of
| being diseased instead of bug infested
they are sent TO quarantine greenhouse
IN the department grounds and propagat-
ed there. where the disease is cured or
the plants destroy ed before they have a
chance TO get out into the country and
| spread crop disorders.
II fact, both these little places are as
practically outside the United States as
| though they were located at the north
| pole, though the United States exercises
over them what might be termed extra
| territorial jurisdiction as IL does over its
i foreign
Quarantine Need Emphasized.
One of the first things that emphasized
| the need of such quarantine station was
shipment of date palms from Egypt, re-
ceived over year ago. This was opened
| in one of the ordinary greenhouse work
| rooms and there dashed out of the ship
ment black Egyptian rat. OF course.
| q rat meant possible bubonic plague.
coming as it did from a country where
the disease prevails. So the laborer who
was unpacking the dates did a graceful
craig fan that landed him standing on
top oi a packing case
The rat had him freed and would have
4 Kept him there like a modern St Simon
Stylites on his pillar, but there was an
emergency call telephoned to the bio
/ logical survey. and its faithful cohorts
marched down on the greenhouse. where
/ they rounded up the rat i'm a rusty but
| trusty wire trap bought for the purpose
from a conveniently adjacent second
hand store.
| The bureau of entomology went over
the rat with fine-tooth comb and found
not only no bubonic-plague fieas, but no
! neas of any sort So the crisis passed.
But the urgent necessity for the quar-
antine room was demonstrated and Ii has
now been installed. In future Il will be
| a thin rat or any other devastator that
escapes from this limbo of undesirable
Immigration. and the moral Is that IL YOU
want to mail any strange plant speci-
| mems to this country from abroad he
sure to address them to the Secretary of
! Agriculture. so that they will come where
| they will be properly cared for