1272 



Rural School Leaflet 



in a season. The last generation passes the winter on the branches in 

 a partly grown condition. 



Injury and control. — Each scale insect has a long, slender, threadlike 

 proboscis, which it thnists tlirough the l)ark down to the sappy layers 

 just beneath. It then begins to pump the sap of the tree into its small 

 yet always hungry body. When a tree becomes covered with untold 

 numbers of these tiny insects, they deprive it of all of its nutritious sap 

 and finally literally starve the tree by stealing its food. 



The San Jose scale may be 

 controlled by spraying the 

 infested trees with lime-sulfur 

 during the dormant period, 

 preferably late in the spring 

 just before the buds start. 

 Severely infested trees may 

 need to have two sprayings, 

 one in the autumn after the 

 leaves fall and another in the 

 spring. The spraying should 

 be done thoroughly and with 

 care and intelligence. 



THE IMPORTED CURRANT 

 WORM 



Pteronus rihesii 



Appearance of the insect. — 

 The mother insect of the im- 

 ported currant worm is a 

 wasplike sawfly about one- 

 third of an inch in length, 

 with foiu- clear wings, a dark 

 head and thorax, and a reddish yellow abdomen. The worms, or larvae, 

 are about three-fourths of an inch in length when full-grown, and green 

 in color with each end of the body tinged with yellow. The younger 

 larva? are green but spotted with black dots. 



Story of its life. — The adult sawflies appear early in the spring and 

 deposit their conspicuous white eggs along the principal veins on the 

 undersides of the currant leaves. The eggs hatch in a week or ten days, 

 and the larvse eat holes in the leaves and become full-grown in two or three 

 weeks. They then go into the ground or beneath rubbish on the surface 

 of the earth and spin cocoons, within which they change to pupas. The 

 adults appear in late June or early July and deposit eggs for a second 



San Jose scale 



