The Ts^ew York Plum Scale. 119 



■on many trees from so many millions of little pumps sucking out their 

 vital fluid — the sap — had been too great. In one orchard three 

 hundred of the oldest bearing trees had succumbed in January, and 

 three hundred more died before spring. 



Effect of the winter of 189Jt.-95 on the scales. — When winter set 

 in, each one of the 50,000 of the best plums trees in western New 

 York harbored millions of the little scales, thus threatening the 

 entire destruction of thousands of these trees in 1895. The 

 situation was exceedingly serious. However, in January it was 

 reported at the meeting of the Western jSTew York Horticultural 

 Society that " a large percentage of the insects were being killed 

 by the winter." We at once made a careful examination of many 

 'infested branches sent in by correspondents in different localities, 

 and found that" the report was well founded ; the good news was 

 fortunately true. From 50 to 75 per cent, of the scales were then 

 dead, and evidently more succumbed later for we believe that in 

 most orchards less than 25 per cent, of those that went into hiber- 

 nation in the fall were alive in April, 1895. Apparently those 

 -most exposed died iirst, indicating that weather conditions of 

 some scfrt may have caused their death. But whether it was due 

 solely to low temperature, or to the sharp, dry, chilling winds that 

 prevailed, we cannot say. 



Extent of damage in 1895. — So far as we have learned, all those 

 who suffered so severely from the insect in 1891:, are unanimous 

 in their opinion that but very little damage has been done by it in 

 their orchards this year ; and it has not been numerous enough to 

 attract particular attention except on a few trees. This general 

 exemption from injury this year was due to three principal causes. 

 First, a majority of the scales died from some cause during the 

 winter, thus greatly checking the future development of the insect. 

 Second, most of those having infested trees carried on a vigorous 

 warfare against the pest with the kerosene emulsion, both in the 

 fall and early spring. Third, thousands of the scales were killed by 

 minute parasites in the spring, and the lady-bug beetles which feed 

 upon the scales were unusually numerous and active during the 

 summer. 



However, a few orchards suffered considerably from the insect this 

 year; we learned of one apple orchard in Niagara county that was 



