The White-Pine Blister.
The white-pine blister rust, discovered in the Eastern States and Canada, will, unless it is speedily exterminated, utterly destroy the chief timber tree of the northeast. Many foresters think that the danger from this forest enemy is as great as from the gypsy moth or the chestnut blight.
This disease occurs on white pines brought from Germany for replanting our forests. In Europe it is a very dangerous plant disease, and it may easily prove more dangerous still in this country. In general, a pest or a disease is far more virulent when transplanted than it is in its native home, because there it is kept down by many natural enemies that have not been developed in its new home. Such was the rabbit in Australia, and the English sparrow here, and the measles in the Pacific Islands. There is every reason why the States already attacked by the white-pine blister rust should be most active in fighting the intruder, and the States which it has not yet entered should maintain a vigilant outlook against it.
This botanical invasion is not unlike the experience of our country with imported frivolities, vices, and sins. French fashions are more abominable here than in Paris. German infidelity takes on here a worse virus than in its Fatherland. Russian anarchism goes to greater lengths in the United States than even in Russia. We need to remember this in framing our immigration laws. It is as important to examine carefully imported race stocks as imported tree stocks.
And, applying the same principle to ourselves, we need to watch our lives with extreme care whenever we are brought into new situations or novel employment, whenever the restraints of familiar surroundings are removed from us. At that time we must be on the watch most strictly; for we have no longer the safeguards of home, and our lower inclinations may more easily have free swing. There is a blister rust of the soul, and it flourishes best under unfamiliar skies.