ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. S\ 



were known to keep it in check in Australia. Certain indigenous species had been dis- 

 covered preying upon it in California, and I expressed the belief that, as they increased, 

 the fruit-growers would get more and more relief from the Icerya ; but I also urged that 

 there was much more chance of success from those which keep it in check in ita 

 native home, and which were not imported with it to the countries of its intro- 

 duction. The case was exceptional, and the attempt thus urged gave every promise of a 

 rich reward. Efforts were made to introduce some of these natural enemies through cor- 

 respondence, especially with the late F. S. Crawford, of Adelaide, with what ultimate 

 results the subsequent success of Vedalia foreve*- rendered uncertain. 



The Hon. H. H. Markham, present governor of California, was at that time a Repre- 

 sentative in Congress, and through him chiefly, but also through others, I urged upon 

 Congress the desirability of sending some one to Australia to make a thorough study of 

 the subject with a view of introducing those natural enemies. Again, in the winter of 

 1887-'88 appeals were made to Congress, not only of a personal nature, but through 

 memorials from various societies in California, for an appropriation to send one or two 

 men to Australia to collect and increase these natural enemies. Congress, however, 

 failed to make any specific appropriation, and also failed to remove the restriction in the 

 appropriation to the Division of Entomology which limited travelling expenses to the 

 United States and prevented independent action of the Department of Agriculture. It 

 happened, however, that about this time an appropriation was made and a commission 

 created to represent the United States at the Melbourne Exposition, and, with the 

 appreciative aid and sympathy of the Hon. Norman J. Oolman, Commissioner of Agri- 

 culture, I took active steps to gain the co-operation of the Secretary of State in my pet 

 scheme, and by an arrangement with the Department of State, accepted by the com- 

 missioner to said Exposition, Hon. Frank McOoppin, the Department of Agriculture was 

 finally enabled to send to Australia two agents of the Division of Entomology, one of 

 them to be under m\ instructions, and the expenses of both, within the sum of $2,000, to 

 be paid out of the appropriation for the aforesaid Exposition. 



Tt was thus that Mr. Albert Koebele, in the fall of 1888, was sent to Australia for 

 this special purpose. The history of Mr. Koebele's efiorts has been detailed from time to 

 time in Government publications and in the press, especially that of California It 

 suffices to state that a number of living enemies, both parasitic and predaceous, were 

 successfully imported, but tha*". one of them, Vedalia cardinalis, proved so effective as to 

 throw the others entirely into the shade and render their services really unnecessary. It 

 has, so far, not been known to prey upon any other insect, and it breeds with surprising 

 rapidity, occupying less than thirty days from the laying of the eggs until the adults again 

 appear. These facts account for its exceptionally rapid work, for in point of fact, within 

 a. year and a half of its fir.st introduction, it had practically cleared off the Fluted Scale 

 throughout the infested region. The expressions of two well-known people may be quoted 

 here to illustrate the general verdict. Prof. W. A. Henry, director of the Wisconsin 

 Agriculture Experiment Station, who visited California in 1889, reported that the work 

 of Vedalia was " the finest illustration possible of the value of the Department to give the 

 people aid in time of distress. And the distress was very great indeed." Mr. William 

 F. Ohanning, of Pasadena, son of the eminent Unitarian divine, wrote two y^ars later : 



We owe to the Agricultural Department the rescue of our orange culture by the importation of the 

 Australian ladybird, Vedalia cardinalis. 



The white scales were incrustiiig our orange trees with a hideous leprosy. They spread with wonder- 

 ful rapidity and would have made citrus growth on the whole North American continent impossible within 

 a few years. It took the Vedalia, where introduced, only a few weeks absolutely to clean out the white 

 scale. The deliverance was more like a miracle than anything 1 have ever seen. In the spring of 1889 I 

 had abandoned my young Washington navel orange trees as irrecoverable. Those same trees bore from 

 two to three boxes of oranges apiece at the end of the season (or winter and spring of 1890). The con- 

 sequence of the deliverance is that many hundreds of thousands of orange trees (navels almost exclusively) 

 have been set out in southern California this last spring. 



In other words, the victory over the scale was complete and will practically remain 

 so. The history of the introduction of this pest, its spread for upwards of twenty yf ars, 

 and the discouragement which resulted, the numerous experiments which were made to 

 overcome the insect, and its final reduction to unimportant numbers by means of an 



6 (EN.) 



