Mr. White to Mr. Sherman.
Berlin, February 19, 1898.
Sir: Referring to my dispatch No. 285, of the 12th instant, I have the honor to report farther, in regard to the recent decree affecting the importation of live plants and fresh fruit from America to Germany, that I have learned from the consul at Hamburg that only two lots of Parmains and Sonoras (not Sannomas, as erroneously called) out of the 4,000 packages already referred to have been stopped; that all apples in barrels (Greenings, Baldwins, and Ben Davis) have been admitted, and no further discoveries of the San Jose scale were made. The steamer Phœnicia brought about 900 barrels and 400 cases of apples, and of these the examination was not finished when Consul Pitcairn wrote. No scale had been found, however, among the apples examined, and the importers had, in order to avoid any possible trouble, applied for and obtained permission to export the 400 cases, which contain Parmains—the sort most suspected. Only one more steamer, bringing 600 packages, is known to be en route, after which the season may be considered as closed.
From the consul at Düsseldorf I learn that the importers of fruit waste (skins and cores), a great deal of which is used in the Rhine districts in the manufacture of jellies, have experienced some difficulty, owing to a difference of opinion among the customs authorities, some of whom hold that this waste, which is evaporated in the same way that fruits are treated, is dried fruit, while others maintain that it is fresh and must be examined. As yet I have not heard that any scale has been found in this waste, nor that any charge has been made for the examination. The shipper, however, has been sent bills covering the charges of unloading and reloading the fruit, and there is, of course, a loss of time caused by the same.
In the Imperial Gazette of the 14th instant a decree of the Bremen senate was published calling attention to the Bundesrath’s decree of the 5th and prescribing penalties in case of failure to notify the proper authorities of the arrival of fruit, etc., from America, or for the improper importation of the same.
In the semiofficial North German Gazette of the 18th instant there [Page 324] appeared an article referring to a report recently made by Professor Johnsen, State entomologist, before the Maryland Horticultural Society, in regard to the ravages of the scale in that State.
I am, etc.,