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Header: (Pomological Watercolor Collection)

Bureaucratic Barriers

David Fairchild’s childhood friend and colleague at the USDA, Charles Marlatt, was an entomologist. In the early 1900s, the United States had no regulations regarding importing plants from abroad. This lack of barriers for importation made the bureaucratic aspect of Fairchild’s work easier, but it was a cause for concern for Marlatt.

“Marlatt liked Fairchild—he was six years older and tended to see Fairchild as a younger brother. They both had a deep love for science. In a way, Marlatt was responsible for Fairchild’s love of Java. In the 1870s, it had been Marlatt who first alerted Fairchild that the famous Alfred Russel Wallace would be visiting their town. Fairchild informed his father, who then invited Wallace to stay in the Fairchild home for an evening, during which the biologist fascinated George Fairchild’s son with vivid descriptions of the Malay Archipelago”

(Stone, The Food Explorer, 221)

Quarantine

Charles Marlatt (Wikimedia Foundation)

In 1907, Marlatt was tasked with drafting a federal law to restrict plant imports. “In his haste to push the bill through, however, Marlatt had failed to comply with the political rules of Washington, D.C. He never contacted commercial nurseries, the industry that would be most affected by the dramatic policy change. . . . As the legislation was speeding toward final passage, William Pitkin, the nurseries’ top lobbyist in Washington, realized what was going on and moved faster than Marlatt. To delay a final vote, Pitkin asked Marlatt to recall the bill for minor changes. Marlatt . . . agreed. Because of this tactical error, the legislation to restrict foreign plant imports languished in committee for three more years. In the meantime, Fairchild’s plant explorers kept hunting."

​​​​​​​(Harris, Fruits of Eden 181-182)

Marlatt remained dedicated to his cause. He wrote in National Geographic magazine about the risks of current and future insect pests. The discovery of a type of fruitfly in Hawaii put the government under enormous pressure to act. President Taft signed Marlatt's Quarantine Act into law on August 20, 1912. Marlatt was appointed chairman of a USDA body, and now he alone could block imports however he saw necessary.

"A properly enforced quarantine and inspection law in the past would have excluded many, if not most, of the foreign insect enemies which are now levying an enormous annual tax on the amounting to several hundred million dollars on the products of the farms and orchards of this country"

~Charles Marlatt (National Geographic, Pests and Parasites, April 1911)

David Fairchild (Wikimedia Foundation)

“I cannot feel the same degree of confidence which some people seem to have that we will decide now a policy which will protect these little seedlings for the next hundred years in the face of the gigantic changes in transportation and commerce which those years will produce”

~ David Fairchild (Quoted in: Harris, Fruits of Eden, 194)

Fairchild’s brother-in-law, Gilbert Grosvenor, editor of National Geographic magazine, helped Fairchild make his case to the scientific community. Fairchild's article focused on the benefits of the plants his office introduced. He urged readers to look beyond the staple crops that Americans had been growing for decades. According to Fairchild, the possibilities for American agriculture were expanding, and shutting the door on plant introduction would be a dire mistake.

“To change, in a measure, the distribution of the really useful plants of the world is what the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction of the department is trying to do. The motive underlying this work might be called ambition to make the world more habitable . If one is inclined to be pessimistic with regard to the food supply of the world, he has only to talk to any one of the enthusiasts of the Department of Agriculture to get a picture of the widening vista of agricultural possibilities which would make him realize that the food problems of the race are not hung in the balance of our Great Plains area, and that the food-producing power of the world is still practically unknown, because we have just begun to study in a modern way the relative performance of different plants.”

~David Fairchild (National Geographic, New Plant Immigrants, October 1911)

A new bureaucratic barrier

THE PLANT QUARANTINE ACT, AUGUST 20, 1912, AS AMENDED MARCH 4, 1913, AND MARCH 4, 1917.


AN ACT To regulate the importation of nursery stock and other plants and plant products; to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to establish and maintain quarantine districts for plant diseases and insect pests; to permit and regulate the movement of fruits, plants, and vegetables therefrom, and for other purposes.

“Our office of [Seed and Plant Introduction] became a storm center. The Quarantine Act Prevented the nursery firms from importing plants themselves, and the only way that they could get them into the country was through the little five-thousand-dollar quarantine greenhouse on the mall. There were times when I felt that my old friend Charles Marlatt and his associates would gladly have done away with the introduction of plants from abroad altogether. But I determined that the door should not be shut. As long as I was able, I would keep my foot in the doorway and prevent importation from being entirely forbidden.”

~David Fairchild (Fairchild, The World Was My Garden, 425)

Plants being inspected by quarantine officials (National Agricultural Library)

Japanese Cherry Trees in Washington

"Mrs. Taft, at that time the First Lady of the Land, was much interested in all that concerned the beauty of Washington. . . . Sometime later Major Cosby, head of the Office of Public Buildings and Parks, wrote us that he had been notified by the Mayor of Tokyo that he was sending two thousand cherry trees as a gift to Mrs. Taft, to aid in her plans. As Major Cosby had no agent in Seattle through whom to arrange for their entry, I offered the services of our importing agent there, and the Office of Plant Introduction handled the shipment across the continent into Washington. . . . I had not dreamed of any difficulty with the Quarantine authorities; this was in the early days of the existence of the Quarantine and it had not yet assumed the role which it now plays. The crates arrived on January 7, 1910, and immediately came under the inspector’s eyes, with the result that almost every sort of pest imaginable was discovered, and I found myself in a hornets’ nest of protesting pathologists and entomologists, who were all demanding the destruction of the entire shipment. Ghastly as it seems, the trees were all burned."

(Fairchild, The World as Garden, 133)

Japan later sent 2,000 more trees, arriving in good health. These were planted in Potomac Park.

Marian Bell Fairchild with Blooming Cherry Tree (Linda Hall Library).

A team led by Charles Marlatt inspecting cherry trees on the Washington Monument grounds (American Entomologist)

Cherry trees being burned on the National Mall (American Entomologist)

The government enterprise of seed and plant introduction continued even after new barriers were put in place because of Fairchild’s sheer will to overcome these barriers and to continue to advance the science of botany and the industry of agriculture.

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