92 DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS OF VICTORIA: 



To fight the San Jose Scale successfully, we must 

 tackle it with a will, at once and continuously, as our 

 climate, more than many parts of America, being warmer, 

 is more conducive to the increase of such pests as this 

 one, because we have a well-nigh perpetual summer, other 

 conditions here being favorable to the active increase of 

 insect life, all and sundry. 



We hope, therefore, by increased vigilance over both 

 trees and fruits, to be able to keep this pest within 

 reasonable limits, if not to stamp it out altogether, which 

 would, of course, be better. Growers are here reminded 

 that the increase of this scale is very rapid, and Professor 

 Howard tells us that in America this scale lives through 

 the winter in the partly-grown condition, and in May 

 resumes growth and becomes mature during the last 

 week of that month, the young, as before remarked, 

 being produced alive by the female, and at such a rate 

 that in six weeks there will be between 450 and 500. 

 In about a month the young are in turn ready to repro- 

 duce ; so by the time the old female dies the second 

 generation is well under way, then continues until well 

 along in December in some cases ; and a single female, 

 starting in the spring, may become the ancestress before 

 the end of the season of 1,160,000,000 scales, so we know 

 with what a formidable foe we have to contend, and must 

 take the strongest and most prompt measures at our 

 disposal for its suppression. When this scale is discovered 

 on the fruit, this should be gathered and at once de- 

 stroyed by scalding, and not on any consideration must 

 fruit so affected be allowed to go into circulation. 

 Wherever the pest is found in a nursery, the latter should 

 be at once placed in quarantine, there being a far greater 

 danger in spreading this scale by means of trees than 

 by fruit, as if the tree be affected you plant it out and 

 by so doing establish the disease at once. 



Growers are specially invited to act promptly, and 

 should they suspect this pest to have entered their 

 orchards, by immediately reporting the same, as only by 



