212 Forty-ninth Report on the State Museum 



tion was apparently confined to the two purchases made at the New 

 Jersey nursery and had not extended beyond them. 



The Scale on Long Island. 



In September of last year the scale was discovered in abundance in 

 some of the nurseries on Long Island by Messrs. Sirrine & Lowe, who 

 had been commissioned by the State Agricultural Experiment Station at 

 Geneva for conducting some entomological investigations especially 

 desired on Western Long Island, under an appropriation of $8,000 made 

 by the Legislature of 1894 to the station named, "for the purpose of 

 agricultural experiment investigations, instruction and information, in the 

 Second Judicial department" of the State of New York. 



Among the earlier results of their investigations was a discovery of the 



San Jose scale in great abundance in some of the nurseries on the Island. 



The foUowmg notice of its first observation was communicated to Garden 



and Forest^ of November 7, 1894: 



The San Jose scale was observed first in the market at Jamaica on 

 some Bardett pears said to have been grown on the Island. The scale 

 was also conspicuous on some fancy varieties of pears exhibited at the 

 Queens County Fair; and by tracing the fruit to its source some of the 

 infested nurseries were located. We have found the scale on pear, apple, 

 peach, and quince stock in several nurseries. 



The nurserymen were unable to give any definite information regard- 

 ing the length of time that they had had the scale, but it was thought by 

 some of them that it had been with them for the past twenty years. 

 This, under the circumstances, is impossible : they had doubtless mistaken 

 some other scale for it. Nor can anything definite be learned of the source 

 of the infestation. If known to them they have been unwilling to commun- 

 icate the fact. It is stated that the stock that was infested was not grown 

 by them, but was received from other nurseries. It would be of material 

 service in the efforts that are being made for the extermination of the 

 scale in the east if the localities of these "other nurseries" could be 

 learned, but for some unknown reason it is being withheld. This unfor- 

 tunate reticence is reflecting on all the other nurseries of the State of 

 New York, for it seems to be implied that from some one or more of 

 them the Long Island infested stock was originally received. It is con- 

 ceded diat its source was not the New Jersey nurseries.* The Geneva 

 nurseries have been inspected by Mr. Lowe, with the result, it is inferred, 

 that the scale was not found therein. The Rochester nurseries have been 

 strongly suspected. Mr. W, C. Barry, when consulted, believed them to 



♦It has since been learned that one of the Long Island nurseries has been receiving stock nearly 

 €very year since 1888 from one or the other of the New Jersey nurseries. 



