32 APPLE-TRUNK BARK-LOUSE — ITS DESTRUCTIVENESS WEST. 



Badly as this insect is infesting our orchards in the State of 

 New-York, it is scourging our western neighbors far more severe- 

 ly. In those districts bordering upon Lake Michigan, in parti- 

 cular, it is at the present time making the most appalling havoc, 

 surpassing anything which has hitherto been recorded of this 

 species. Scarcely a tree is free from them, and unless measures 

 for destroying the insect are resorted to, the tree is sure to perish 

 within a few years after it is invaded. 



George Kimball, Esq., of Kenosha, Wisconsin, gave me the fol- 

 lowing interesting account of the introduction and spreading of 

 this insect among his trees : " The bark-louse appears to have 

 been introduced here in the year 1840 by four young sweet apple 

 trees which my son brought from Cleveland, Ohio. These trees 

 dwindled, their limbs had a black appearance, and the bark was 

 everywhere covered with these lice, crowded upon and over- 

 lapping each other, so that they would peel off in large scales, 

 and be washed off by rains, clusters of them adhering together in 

 sheets, till finally, in the year 1848, these trees died, having 

 grown not more than an inch annually fur the last three years. 

 And the same lice had now spread upon and were covering my 

 other trees more or less. All my trees became badly infested, 

 the sweet ones beimj; overrun more than the others. Some of 

 them took up their abode upon my pear trees also, particularly 

 upon a small tree which I happened to have, bearing hard worth- 

 less fruit; this was covered with them as badly as some of my 

 apple trees. We could find nothing in books, or in agricultural 

 or horticultural papers which seemed to apply to this louse, and 

 hence were thrown upon our own ingenuity to combat it. Efforts 

 were made in this village to organize a society, with an admission 

 fee of ten dollars, to raise a fund with which to encourage expe- 

 riments, and handsomely reward the person who discovered the 

 best remedy. A secret remedy, which proved to be worthless, 

 was extensively sold all over this section of country for one dol- 

 lar to each person. Hoping that my younger and more vigorous 

 trees would outlive the pest, I dug up and threw away all my old 

 trees, upwards of thirty in number. I have now about one hun- 

 dred and fifty trees, none of them over twelve years old, and 



