1906] 



LANDRETH— THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 171 



their stomachs any poisons which accidentally or artificially rested 

 upon the outer surfaces of the plants ; while secondly, there were 

 other insects which entomologists had recognized for one hundred 

 and fifty years, but which the farmer had never critically observed, 

 which did not" masticate their food, those after the order of the mos- 

 quito, sap suckers, having a little pumping apparatus which they 

 inserted beneath the cuticle of stem or leaf and drew out the sap, 

 ignoring entirely any application of poison. 



The entomologists advised the adoption of a different policy, 

 saying that these sapsuckers must be strangled, and the way to do 

 that would be to spray them with some liquid of an oily, caustic or 

 soapy basis, because insects do not have lungs, in the ordinary under- 

 standing of the term, but breath through orifies along the sides of 

 their bodies or abdomens sometimes covered by scales as in the case 

 of the fish-like lamina of the honey bee. The entomologists told 

 the farmer that an oily spray put upon these or, indeed, any other 

 insects, would gum up the orifices and the insects, consequently, die. 

 Thus, between the surface application of poisons for the tissue-eating 

 insects and the application of oily fluids for the sap suckers, most 

 insects can be kept in check. 



The insect now attracting most attention on the part of the fruit 

 growers is the San Jose scale, a native of China, believed to have 

 been brought to California on imported trees. These insects have 

 by gradations of progress eastward covered the entire country, and 

 if left alone would destroy every fruit tree in the land. But very 

 practical steps are now being taken everywhere to eradicate this 

 insect by the application of a liquid combination of lime and sulphur, 

 which is caustic in its action, killing most of the half-grown hiber- 

 nating scale insects in winter, and preventing the settling of any 

 young that may come from the few parent insects escaping the wash. 



As much as forty years ago scientific men indicated to seedsmen 

 the use of several insecticides, principally carbon-bisulphid for the 

 treatment of weevil-infected seeds, or for the treatment, in fact, of 

 any seeds bearing on their surfaces or within them insects or mites. 

 Seedsmen and grain merchants are especially annoyed in the conduct 

 of their business by the depredations of the weevil family which 



