l80 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



from twenty to twenty-five per cent, of kerosene, or spray with 

 crude petroleum having a specific gravity of not less than 

 forty-three degrees on the scale. If the application is made 

 on a bright sunny day, just before the leaves appear, the in- 

 jury is so very slight to most of our trees compared to the 

 injury which the scale may do if left to multiply upon the 

 trees that it is hardly worth mentioning. Whale oil soap has 

 been used to some extent, but that is an expensive application, 

 and in order to kill the scale it must be used very strong, 

 about two pounds in one gallon of water, and it is hard to 

 dissolve it in this proportion so it will go through any ordi- 

 nary spray nozzle easily. The cheapest remedy unquestion- 

 ably is the water and oil applied through one of these pumps 

 which mixes the two liquids under pressure. The crude oil 

 has one advantage, in that it remains upon the twigs and 

 branches for about four months, or long enough to prevent 

 the establishment of a great many of the young insects. We 

 cannot hope with a single application to kill them all. If a 

 few are left they will multiply through the season very rapidly. 

 If the crude oil is used, the bark remains covered with the 

 substance and the young insects do not settle upon it as 

 they otherwise would. 



Secretary Brown. " Is the sale of adulterated foods in 

 Connecticut increasing?" 



Prof. WiNTON. I think, Mr. Secretary, we can furnish 

 very conclusive proof that the sale is decreasing. When we 

 first started in our work we examined a number of food prod- 

 ucts and ascertained their condition as to adulteration, and 

 then afterwards came back to those same products and made 

 another examination, and we found in almost every case that 

 the percentage of adulteration was much less. Take, for ex- 

 ample, cofifee. When we first started, nine-tenths of the sam- 

 ples we collected were adulterated, but when we came to 

 examine coffee again we found only one-tenth of our samples 

 were adulterated, a change from nine-tenths adulterated to 



