ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. . 371 



its artificial spread by means of nursery stock as much as possible, or 

 why we should not kill it off on our fruit trees, at intervals, to prevent 

 any serious damage to the crops. We can palliate, or we can often avoid 

 injury by dodging, and the entomologist has an overly-great field to cover 

 in this direction. 



Personally, I am glad Mr. Marlatt has spoken, and as definitely as he 

 did. It is an indication that the San Jose scale scare is about over, and 

 that we can now estimate it at a little nearer its true value. We have 

 had conventions, have had lurid speeches and papers, have had State 

 laws galore and attempts at national legislation as well. The result is 

 that we have our nursery stock shut out of all foreign countries, and have 

 annoying and expensive restrictions upon our fruit trade in some others. 

 The scale has, meanwhile, marched on unconcernedly ; more fruit is 

 raised now than ever before ; the farmers, where it has been established 

 longest, have lost their dread of it ; and how much of all the good is to 

 be credited to the laws and to the great outcry ? 



Mr. Marlatt's point of view is, it seems to me, the completely correct 

 one. 



Dr. Howard presented the results of experiments made by the Rus- 

 sian, Prof. I. Porchinski, who finds that the Tabanids may be greatly 

 reduced in number by covering pools which they frequent with a film of 

 kerosene. An interesting and perhaps generally unknown fact is that 

 Tabanids are so much addicted to drink ! 



One of the new fields into which applied entomology has recently en- 

 tered is brought to our attention by Dr. Howard's intensely interesting 

 account of the present status of the Caprifig experiments in California. 

 It marks another step forward in the really scientific consideration of 

 the relation of insects and plants to each other, and that two such papeis 

 as those by Marlatt and Howard should have been presented at one 

 meeting shows that the Division of Entomology at least, in Washington. 

 has risen above the dull routine of ascertaining the actual percentage 

 of scales killed by any particular application, and its influence for good 

 will increase in proportion to the encouragement which is given to tin 

 broad study of the problem. Mr. Marlatt has pointed out, not origin- 

 ally, indeed, but pertinently, that there is such a thing as a balance of 

 nature, and, as all our interference, by introducing plants and insects into 

 new localities, tends to unsettle this balance to our disadvantage, our 

 studies should be directed toward restoring, so far as in us lies, this 

 condition of equilibrium. 



And, by the by, referring to the matter of judging an insecticide by 

 the percentage of the specimens killed, this has always had an absurd 

 side to it, from my point of view. If I apply a material, like tobacco for 

 instance, and, after a day or two, find that it has killed ninety per cent, i.f 

 the plant lice, this does not prove that it is the fault of the tobacco that 

 the others were not killed, but simply that the insecticide did not reach 



