222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ground by a variety of insects, and not a tuber nor a bulb escapes infes- 

 tation. 



The stems of herbaceous plants and shrubs and the trunks and 

 branches of trees harbor borers without number and belonging to several 

 orders. Vigorous growing vines like those of cucurbits may harbor sev- 

 eral borers in a single stem, while even a wheat straw affords ample 

 accommodation for several species, from the minute joint-worms to the 

 caterpillars of owlet moths. 



Fruit and other trees are attacked even in the nursery, and many 

 a seedling never gets be} r ond the earliest stage of development. The 

 temptation is great to enlarge on these points; but the difficulty would 

 then be to find a stopping place. It must suffice to say that there is 

 no part of a plant from the tip above to the rootlet below ground that 





Fig. 14. The San Jose Scale as it appears on an infested shoot ; from the Virginia 



Experiment Station. 



may not be inhabited by a borer. Nor, on the other hand, is there a 

 part of the outside of the plant above ground that may not be infested 

 by scales or plant-lice. 



Not so many years ago the Pacific Coast feared for its fruit indus- 

 try because of the Cottony Cushion Scale, an imported pest. Still 

 more recently the eastern United States was invaded by the San Jose 

 Scale, another imported species which is responsible for more legisla- 

 tion, more organization, more expenditure of money and a greater revo- 

 lution in methods of fruit growing, than any insect in history. No 



