THE SAN JOSE SCALE. 87 



In a most interesting and complete account of this 

 insect Professor Howard, Cliief Entomologist for the 

 United States, in descril)ing its importance from an 

 economic point of view, says — " There is perhaps no 

 insect capable of causing greater damage to fruit interests 

 in the United States, or perha^DS in the world, than the 

 San Jose, or Perniciosus Scale. It is not striking in 

 appearance, and might often remain unrecognised, or at 

 least misunderstood, and yet so steadily and relentlessly 

 does it spread over practically all deciduous fruit trees — 

 trunk, limbs, foliage, and fruit — that it is only a question 

 of two or three years before the death of the plant 

 attacked is brought about, and the possibility of injury, 

 which from experience with other scale insects of deciduous 

 plants might be easily ignored, or thought insignificant, 

 is soon amply demonstrated. Its importance from an 

 economic stand-point is vastly increased by the ease with 

 which it is distributed through the agency of nursery 

 stock, and the marketing of fruit, and the extreme diffi- 

 culty of exterminating it when once introduced, present- 

 ing as it does, in the last regard, difficulties not found 

 with any other scale insect. The Los Angeles Commis- 

 sion reported, in 1890, that if this pest be not speedily 

 destroyed it will utterly ruin the deciduous fruits of the 

 Pacific coast. We are, therefore, justified in the assertion 

 that no more serious menace to the deciduous fruit 

 interests of the country has ever been known. There is 

 no intention here to arouse unnecessary alarm, but 

 merely to emphasize the importance of taking the utmost 

 precautions to prevent its introduction into new localities, 

 and to point out the extreme necessity of earnest effort to 

 stamp it out where it has already gained a foothold." 



This pest is, as far as we know, but a comparatively 

 recent arrival in this colony, although it was reported on 

 by the late Mr. OlHflf as being in New South Wales as far 

 back as 1892, as having been found upon pear trees in 

 Maitland ; and it has been proved beyond a doubt that the 

 trees in the Wangaratta district, where the first outbreak 



