360 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF HORTICULTURE. 



loose bark of various trees. It is seen, therefore, that in the warmer locali- 

 ties breeding is hardly interrupted during the winter months and the winter 

 is passed quite as much in the active as in the egg state. Throughout the 

 summer young are produced continuously, as with most other plant mites, 

 with no particular differentiation of broods. 



The habit of this mite of abandoning its feeding situations in the fall to 

 seek hibernating quarters elsewhere leads to its being a house pest of no 

 mean importance. This is particularly true wherever it has been breeding 

 on clover or other grasses near dwellings. From such situations, particu- 

 larly in the Mississippi Valley States, it often swarms into dwellings through 

 doors or windows, its small size enabling it to penetrate wire screens with 

 ease to the very considerable disquietude of the housekeeper. There are 

 only a few records of their entering houses in the east, and in the extreme 

 west they seem only to have been found on trees. 



REMEDIES AND PREVENTIVES. 



The protection of fruit trees from the attacks of this mite is comparatively 

 easy where the winter is chiefly passed in the egg state, as in Colorado or 

 other elevated or cold districts. The experience of Mr. C. P. Gillette in 

 Colorado has shown that the eggs may be very easily destroyed during win- 

 ter by applying kerosene emulsion to the trees at about twice the ordinary 

 strength, viz, diluted with five parts of water. Spraying at this time is both 

 economical and easy, on account of the absence of foliage, and no danger 

 will result to the plants from the application. Such an application also in 

 the warmer latitudes will be of almost equal value as a protection to fruit 

 trees, since it will reach what eggs there may be and also many of the mites 

 secreted in the cracks of the bark. 



It is a much more difficult matter to protect clover and other grasses 

 from the mites, except as it may be possible to spray in winter the trees, 

 fences, etc., on or in which the mites may be hibernating, in the vicinity of 

 lawns. 



Their entrance into houses in fall my be prevented by spraying the lower 

 portion of the building, walls, etc., with pure kerosene as often as need be 

 and also spraying the lawns immediately about the building with kerosene 

 emulsion nine times diluted. The mites may be destroyed after they have 

 gained entrance to the house by the free use of buhach or pyrethrum pow- 

 der, burning brimstone, or spraying with benzine, taking due precautions 

 with the latter substance in the matter of fire. 



