REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST AND BOTANIST 243 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



Owing largely to the excellent work which has been done by Mr. George E. Fisher, 

 the Inspector of -San Jose Scale for the province of Ontario, and also by Prof. F. M. 

 Webster, in the State of Ohio, just across our borders, where the conditions are identi- 

 cally the same with ours in Ontario, fruit-growers are at last beginning to appreciate 

 how important a matter it is for them to take measures to control this terrible pest as 

 soon as they become aware of its presence on their trees. The outlook at the present 

 time, as far as the San Jose Scale is concerned, seems more hopeful than it has ever 

 been since the first announcement of its occurrence in Canada. Every effort has been 

 put forth by the federal and provincial governments to protect fruit-growers and 

 others from further importations of the scale, and at the same time a great deal of 

 work has been done in distributing information through printed reports and bulletins, 

 through addresses at public meetings, and through the agricultural press, to explain 

 to all likely to suffer from the ravages of the insect how to recognize it, what its habits 

 are, and what can be done to keep it in check. Extensive experiments have been tried, 

 particularly by the officials of the Ontario Government, with all the remedies which 

 from time to time have been suggested, and, as an outcome of all the work done in 

 Ontario and the United States, it may now be reasonably claimed that we have three 

 practical remedies against this worst of all known fruit pests, which are, at any rate, as 

 effective against it as many remedies which are used with satisfaction against other 

 injurious insects. 



Injurious Nature of the San Jose Scale. — A vain hope which was entertained by 

 fruit-growers in Ontario, was that all parts of Canada were too far north for the San 

 Jose Scale to increase and spread to the injurious extent of killing trees. It was 

 known that in the Southern States trees had been killed in two or three years. Some 

 claimed that the scale had certainly been introduced into Canada for several years 

 longer than was believed to be the case by entomologists, and as no trees had been 

 found to have been killed by it, they thought that the danger from this insect had been 

 overestimated by those who had studied it carefully, and that in Canada the scale 

 would not kill trees outright in the same wholesale manner as it did in the Southern 

 States. The experience of the past season, however, in many orchards which I have 

 visited this autumn, at Niagara, St. Catharines, Chatham, and Guilds, near Blenheim, 

 Ont., entirely disposes of any doubt on this score. Several trees were seen which had 

 only been attacked for two or three years, but which were quite dead, and a great many 

 more which, although they had not been actually killed outright, were so seriously 

 injured that they were practically useless. I anticipate that very few of these will 

 survive the winter. The kinds of trees which had been most injured were peach, plum, 

 and pear, in the order mentioned ; even apple trees, which are known to resist the 

 attack of this insect longer than other fruit trees, were found dead in some orchards 

 which had been known to be infested for only two or three years. Others were found 

 very seriously injured, many of the lower branches being quite dead. Some varieties 

 of apples, and indeed of all other fruit, are more susceptible to injury from the San 

 Jose Scale than other kinds are. The Rhode Island Greening seems to have small 

 power of resistance among the best known commercial varieties of apples, and the 

 fruit shows the presence of the scale much more conspicuously by the red blotches 

 which are caused on the green skin, wherever they have been attacked. Among plum 1 *, 

 the Japanese varieties suffer most. ' Of peaches, Crawfords and varieties of that type 

 are the most susceptible. Bartlett pears are probably most affected, and Kieffers cer- 

 tainly least.' (G. E. Fisher.) 



Rapidity of Increase. — As an instance of the rapidity with which the San Jose 

 Scale spreads, I may cite one large orchard, near Chatham, Ont., consisting of 70 acres, 

 containing over 10,000 well-grown fruit trees of various kinds — apple, peach, pear and 

 plum. This orchard has been well pruned, cultivated, sown with cover crops, and 

 otherwise cared for. Two years ago, infested trees were detected at four or five points 

 through the orchard. No efforts were made to destroy the scale, and, when I visited 



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