8 The Bulletin. 



Plants Attacked by It. In our State the complaints of damage by the 

 Oyster-shell Scale refer almost wholly to apple. Two complaints from 

 Burlington (Alamance County) and one from Asheville refer to it as a 

 pest on maples, while one complaint from Kings Mountain (Cleveland 

 County) referred to its presence on pear. 



it is known, however, to attack a great variety of plants. Quaintance 

 and Sasscer state that it is "commonly found on apple, maple, horse- 

 chestnut, poplar, willow and lilac," and they then give a list of over one 

 hundred species of plants upon which it has been found, and among 

 these we find such North Carolina kinds as: alder, aspen, apple, apricot, 

 ash, Balm of Gilead, basswood, beech, box, box elder, buckeye (horse- 

 chestnut), butternut, cherry, chestnut, clematis, currant, dogwood, elm, 

 tig, ginseng, grape, holly, honeysuckle, lilac,* locust, maple, oak, peach, 

 pear, plum, poplar, quince, raspberry, rose, sassafras, spruce, sycamore, 

 umbrella tree, Virginia creeper, willow, walnut and yucca. They em- 

 phasize its importance as a pest of apple, maple and poplar. 



This shows that the species has plenty of native plants upon which it 

 may live — yet as before stated its chief standing as a pest with us is 

 owing to its attacks on apple, though its recorded injuries to maples (at 

 Burlington and Asheville) must not be overlooked. Mr. Collett has 

 found it abundant on dogwood in forests far from orchard trees in 

 Cherokee County. But we have not made a detailed record of all the 

 plants on which we have found it in the State. 



Summarizing this matter of its food-plants, so far as North Carolina 

 is concerned, we may put it down that the Oyster-shell Scale is chiefly 

 a pest of the apple, is also an enemy of maple, has been found abundant 

 >u dogwood, and may in future (if it is not sometimes already) be a 

 noticeable pest on horse-chestnut, poplar, willow and lilac, where these 

 are grown for shades or ornament. In addition it is possible for it to 

 '.ive on our other fruit trees, and a host of other forest and shade trees. 



Damage in North Carolina. Considering the prevalence' of this in- 

 sect in our mountain region, the proof of really serious injury is not as 

 abundant as might be expected. In that region it may be found in 

 almost every apple orchard, usually in small or moderate numbers. In 

 many individual cases, however, it becomes excessively abundant on 

 parts of certain trees, or on the whole of certain trees, or even through- 

 out the orchard. If a tree becomes infested while it is young, when all 

 of the bark is tender, the body and branches may become completely en- 

 crusted and the tree may be stunted or killed. It does not breed and 

 spread as rapidly as the San Jose Scale, hence the younger growth does 

 not so quickly become infested. Hence it is not unusual to find a tree 

 badly infested on trunk and branches of three to six years growth, while 

 rhe newer growth of one to two years may have comparatively few scales. 

 As the tree grows older there is a tendency to migrate toward the some- 

 what younger growth (three to six years) and the trunk and very oldest 

 branches then show the scales mainly under the loose outer flakes of 

 rough bark. 



'We have at present no record of it on lilac in North Carolina, but in Maryland where the writer 

 worked in 1897-98 it was frequently a pest on that plant. 



