88 THE REPORT OF THE [ No. 19 



specimens received this year from, the same neighborhood these mites were very numer- 

 ous. I mounted some specimens and with a female S. J. put them in the Society's collec- 

 tion of microscopic slides. As many as eighteen larval mites were observed under one 

 large scale. 



Mr. N. Banks, Washington, a well-know expert on mites, reports it Tyroglyphus 

 malus, Skinner, which is known to prey on the larvae of the oyster-shell bark louse. Dr. 

 Howard writes that J. Lignieres published a valuable article on this mite in the pro- 

 ceedings of the Society Zoologiquede France in 1893. The habits of the mite are given 

 accompanied by excellent anatomical figures. 



" The San Jose scale is spreading very fast this year" in Ontario. This statement 

 was made again and again last season, and it is repeated this year. Some people who 

 have heard it, have inferred that since the suspension of the cutting and burning of 

 affected trees the insect has multiplied at a more rapid rate than formerly. The discovery 

 of new areas and new locations of infestation does not prove that the scale has increased 

 abnormally last year and this one. That the pest was not in these newly discovered 

 infestations in 1898 or in previous years is only an assumption ; to say that the township 

 or even the orchard was inspected in that year does not by any means prove that the 

 scale was not there. 



The officers' assurance in 1899 that the scale was well-iiigh "surrounded" was based 

 on the belief that by tracing the deliveries of stock from the few infested nurseries all 

 initial points of its distribution could be located. The possibility, nay the probability, of a 

 more general introduction may be reasonably suspected from a consideration of the methods 

 adopted by some nursery agencies. For several years past, as a county school inspector, I 

 have received one or more circular letters asking for a list of the addresses of the teachers in 

 the county, the reward usually offered for the trouble was one or more young trees or 

 fljwering shrubs. The teachers whose addresses were thus obtained were urged to do 

 some canvassing in their respective neighborhoods, or, in some cases, to send a list of 

 orchard owners or probable purchasers in consideration of a like reward to that just 

 mentioned. The badly infested New Jersey nurseries were as likely as any others to 

 supply stock to the jobbers who sought to use the teachers as distributers of it. 



In addition to the stock imported and scattered all over the country by jobbers there 

 is no doubt that individual farmers here and there imported young trees direct from the 

 nurseries, Dealers would not put and keep their advertisements in the papers without 

 seeing some benefit from them. These are some of the facts to be considered before 

 accepting the conclusion that all or nearly all the centres of infestation in Ontario were 

 known in 1899 and that new ones are due to the interruption of the methods in operation 

 in the spring of that year. Incalculable good came from the tracing and destroying of 

 aff'ected nursery stock. Upwards of a hundred centres of evil were thus probably 

 rendered harmless. All that the San Jose scale has cost Ontario has been doubly and 

 trebly repaid by this action alone. On the other hand harm came from the sense of false 

 security begotten of reliance on the reports of immunity based on a superficial examination 

 of the orchards in the fruit growing townships. 



The hope for the future successful disposal of the scale-insect difficulty lies not in 

 legislative intervention but in education. Every farmers' institute and every school- 

 house should be a point from which light should be thrown on the nature, life-history 

 and method of treatment of our insect and fungal pests. Lessons on the scale insects 

 could be made as useful and made to yield as good training for the observing and reason- 

 ing powers as an equal number of lessons in spelling, algebra, arithmetic, etc. 



In August Rev. Mr. Seaborne discovered an infestation of San Joe^ scale in London 

 East. In September Mr. Ellwood of St. Thomas sprayed the trees with a very dilute 

 solution of coal-oil to which some common salt was added. He claims that the salt 

 makes the solution more eff'ective against the insect without correspondingly endangering 

 the vitality of the tree, I visited the place twice since Mr. EUwood's treatment. The 

 leaves of the sprayed trees were injured more or less, but I found no living scale. On 

 one branch I took away there were two females found which did not appear to be dead. 

 On a branch taken subsequently no living scale insects were found. The developments 

 of next spring will tell whether the treatment is effective. 



