9 Dec, 1907.] Insect Pests in Foreign Lands. 719 



notify in writing what action an orchardist must take. If the trees are 

 not cleaned within a certain time the inspector can employ some one to 

 do the work and recover the cost from the owner. In Los Angeles a large 

 sum is expended in inspection, and over 9,000 orange trees were fumigated 

 this season by the inspectors. The system of the County Horticultural 

 Commissioners is very irregular in its administration, as many of them 

 hardly do any inspection. The Lieutenant-Governor in Sacramento told 

 me that he was going to bring in a Bill to make every fruit producing 

 county pay an Entomologist to act as inspector and adviser to the Horti- 

 cultural Commissioner. 



On the following Monday accompanied by Mr. Jeffrey I went out by 

 electric tram to Govina, where we met Inspector Bemish and drove all 

 day through the orange groves of the San Gabriel Valley which contains 

 about 8,000 acres of citrus orchards. We found a considerable amount 

 of red and yellow scale upon old trees, but as the greater part of all these 

 orchards had been fumigated during the last year they were generally very 

 clean. The whole of this valley is irrigated by water from the adjacent 

 mountains. The walnut orchards of Santa Barbara were visited next day 

 on my way back by the coast road, and I reached San Franciscoi next day 

 at 2 o'clock in the morning. My last expedition was to Santa Rosa 

 northwards with Mr. Koebele round the orchards of that district where 

 purple scale was said to be killed by a parasite. We sent our cards into 

 Mr. Burbank, but did not see that gentleman. I also visited Paulo Alto 

 to see Mr. Kellogg, the Professor of Entomology at Leland Stanford 

 University, and obtained his opinions on entomological work in California, 

 and saw the working of his office. 



The observations made during my three weeks' investigations among 

 the insect pests of the orchards as to the value of parasites, and the 

 opinions of the leading men interested in the industry, all point to the 

 same conclusions, namely, that in spite of the money and work that have 

 been expended during the last twenty years in the State of California upon 

 the introduction and propagation of foreign parasitic insects to destroy 

 scale and other injurious insects, with one or two exceptions, they have very 

 little commercial value, for unless they are effective enough to render the 

 work of spraying and fumigation unnecessary they might as well not exist. 



I have found all the orchards and garden pests (with the exception of 

 fruit flies) quite as abundant and destructive in California as in Australia, 

 and wherever the orchards are neglected they suffer in the same manner. 

 Even with the drastic powers held by the officers of the State Board of 

 Horticulture the orchards have to be cleaned by spraying and fumigating. 

 In Los Angeles wherever one goes he finds fumigating tents. At Watson- 

 ville there are a dozen steam sprayers and many smaller outfits spraying 

 for codlin moth ; a large factory is established at Bernecia which does 

 nothing else but turn out a liquid form of lime and sulphur wash, called 

 "Rex," used for spraying San Jose scale. The small green chalcid 

 wasp {Scutellista cyanea) introduced from South Africa through Mr. 

 Lounsbury to destroy brown scale, though it has to a great extent cleared 

 off this cosmopolitan scale from the pepper trees and other ornamental 

 garden trees, has made little or no difference to olive scale in the orchards. 

 All the orange trees in the parks and side walks are covered with red 

 scale, smut and aphis, and yet one can see many small native parasitic 

 wasps crawling about on the leaves among the scale of which thev have no 

 doubt destroyed a certain percentage. 



