486 P,OAED OF AGRICULTUE.E. 



do business. If that were all that is necessary, then the present appro- 

 priation would be sufficient. But an experience of six years has shown 

 that, while the inspection of nurseries is very important, it is really but 

 a small part of the work that should be done, even in connection with the 

 San Jose scale alone. As there was no restriction on the interstate ship- 

 ment of nursery stocli pi'evious to the passage of this law, a large quan- 

 tity of scale-infested stock was shipped into the State and planted out 

 by the unsuspecting fruit growers. As a result there are a number of 

 localities in the State which are seriously infested with this insect, and 

 where thousands of dollars of damage has been done, and it is still 

 spreading to new localities, so that this Is the most serious part of the 

 problem which confronts us, and which can be properly dealt with only 

 by putting a competent man in the field, as has been done by both 

 Illinois and Ohio, and keeping him there until the people have become 

 educated up to the point where they can do 'the work themselves. The 

 remedies now recommended by entomologists are inexpensive and easy to 

 apply, but somewhat difficult to make properly until one learns how; and 

 so the novice is very slow to undertake it, fearing that he wiU make a 

 failure of it, and, in fact, that is often the case. 



Then, too, only a comparatively few persons are able to identify the 

 San Jose scale; and so it often happens that whole orchards become in- 

 fested before anytliing wi-ong is suspected by the owner. An instance 

 of that kind came to my notice the past year. A peach orchard in southern 

 Indiana, containing neary four thousand trees, was found to be dying. 

 My attention was called to it and I found that the whole orchard was 

 infested and the scale had been there so long that almost every tree was 

 completely coated with it. Under those conditions the only thing that 

 could be done was to destroy the whole orchard. It Avas a serious loss to 

 the owner and one that could have been avoided had it been noticed in 

 time. More than that, it had been serving as a breeding ground for the 

 scale for several years and other orchards in the same vicinity had become 

 Infested. It is safe to say that the saving of that one orchard Avould have 

 been the means of saving more money to the community than the entire 

 appropriations for this work amount to in five years. And this is only 

 a single case of many that could be mentioned. With an additional ap- 

 propriation of two thousand dollars a year for this work the State Ento- 

 mologist could employ competent men, with the necessary outfit, to go 

 into these infested localities and give demonstrations as to the prepara- 

 tion and use of the spraying mixtures, and supervise the wmk generally. 

 This, in my opinion, is the only way Ave shall be able to succeed in getting 

 control of the San Jose scale in this State. 



In order to show that the amount asked for is within reason, it may 

 not be out of place to state that Ohio has appropriated $10,000 and Illinois 

 $6,000 annually for this same work. 



