TWENTY FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 119 



or tliree feet above the ground, the owner simply cuts off the limbs, let- 

 ting the stub.s be, perhaps, six inches long. That leaves simply the bare 

 truck and a few stubs of limbs, and this has worked much more satis- 

 factorily. I saw the orchard three weeks ago, and while the scale is not 

 entirely killed it is pretty nearly used up; and as he proposes to take 

 the same heroic method this year that he did last, I venture to say that 

 there won't be many living scales in the orchard next spring. The 

 trouble is that they will get lodged in the old trees. If a man will tell 

 me where ho bought his trees, I can trace it back to the nursery, but the 

 troubleisinlearningof this; and if you don't stamp it out promptly, it will 

 spread from one tree to another, and perhaps get into the forest trees 

 where you can not manage it. We have had a good deal of contention 

 with some nurserymen in the east (in fact, I have done nothing but fight 

 for the last year), and 1 have had my hands full, but I believe we have 

 got it now where it will be kept down. I know of one nursery that did 

 send it out last spring. I was told in Massachusetts that this scale 

 had been found last summer on trees sent out last spring. I don't know 

 how closely these people have to be watched, but they are watched in 

 New York very closely, and they know they will be exposed if it is 

 attempted to send out infested stock; and anyone with a reputation 

 won't do it anyway; and as to those who haven't — there are three or four 

 entomolo'^ists who will try to see that they don't. 



I don't look for much of the scale to be sent out from the east, but it is 

 an important matter that we should know where it has become estab- 

 lished, and destroy it. 



Q. Do you think kerosene is the best remedy? 



A. I haven't anvthing to sav about that. It did work in that one 

 case, and I can not see that it did any injury. 



Q. What is your remedy? 



A. I would use a whale oil soap mixture, say 1^ pounds of whale oil 

 soap to a gallon of water. Use that before the buds put forth in the 

 spring and after the leaves drop in autumn. 



Q. Is that the regular solution, or would you use it a little stronger? 



A. You can use two pounds to the gallon (I think 1| is about right), 

 just before the buds start in the spring. Get it into every little crevice 

 and crack in the bark and then you can reduce the area to be treated by 

 pruning the tree back as much as you dare to if the tree is worth saving. 



Q. Vo you apply it with a spray? 



A. You can do it thoroughly with a sprayer; if it is badly injured it 

 is better to burn it anyway, because, if you will open the bark, you will 

 see that the inner bark has a blood-red color; the insect sucks the sap, 

 and wbere it does this the bark is diseased. Even if you succeed in get- 

 ting your tree to live, it will not be healthy. It will pay better to pull it 

 up and burn it if it is seriously injured. But where you attempt to treat 

 it, prune off the limbs and then treat it with the whale oil soap mixture. 

 It is in the trouble of getting around to do it that the difficulty lies, and 

 what I am afraid of is this: There is nothing to hinder their becoming 

 established alongside of a nursery, by some careless fellow, and the owner 

 of the nursery be perfectly innocent: and yet, the first tiling he knows, 

 he has this trouble in his nursery, and for which he is in no way responsi- 

 ble. My greatest fear is that it will get started in that way. 



