IIEMIPTEROUS INSECTS ON ORANGE. Kil 



wlieu I found the iiuiuber rapidlj- decrease until their nearly total ex- 

 tinction. 



"As to the damage. The bug first attacks the latest growth, which 

 wilts and drooj^s while the bug is sucking ; in a few days the shoot is 

 dead ; the same eye soon sends out another shoot which shares the fate 

 of its predecessor, and so on until the eye has the appearance of a large 

 bunch, as you will see on twigs sent. After all the tender growtu has 

 been destroyed the bug inserts his sharp sucking tube in the previous 

 growth which has nearly hardened. Here I can only give you the facts 

 and my theory ; It is a fact that the insect sucks such wood, but the 

 damage does not follow so quickly ; but very soon after, on such wood 

 known to be sucked, numerous bumps appear, which crack and exude 

 a sticky sap, white at first, but soon a rusty red, and hard. Later on 

 the insects suck the juice from fully-matured wood (an inch or more in 

 diameter); on this wood the bumps do not appear, but the same kind 

 of sticky sap exudes iu tears, which soon harden and redden and are 

 what I understand bj' " red rust." That the cause and effect are strictly 

 true I can only surmise, but this much 1 and my men have seen : the in- 

 sects sucking the sap as stated and the branches where sucked having 

 the appearance described. In the winter months I have found clusters 

 of the bugs on the stocks of the buds, two inches in diameter, and always 

 an exudation of sap at these places, which I have never observed to 

 redden as in the instances stated above. Why this is so, and why the 

 insect leaves the more tender bud above to suck the sap from harder 

 wood nearer the roots, lean offer no suggestion. At first I was strongly 

 inclined to think that red rust was caused by soil-poisoning, but if so, 

 why is it that trees have grown for so many years on the same soil and 

 never had this disease until the introduction of the Green Bug ? To 

 illustrate: When 1 bought this i>lace ten years ago there was a field of 

 five acres which had been in partial cultivation several years, and on 

 which grew spontaneously the tomato and mustard plant, the two plants 

 on which the insects thrive the best. (At i)resent I can only find tiie 

 insect on the mustard.) Since my purchase I have kept this field 

 constantly growing pea vines, as well as the forty other acres which 

 I have in orange trees, thus giving every ejicouragement to the in- 

 crease of the pest. Adjoining this old field was a wild orange grove 

 in a dense forest. Many of the sour stumps had large sweet buds, 

 neither the buds nor sour trees giving any signs of the red rust until 

 the winter following the clearing, and after a crop of pea- vines had been 

 grown among the trees. Kow the trees in this wild grove are just as 

 much damaged as in the old field adjoining. Another case 1 will men- 

 tion, and not trespass further on your patience. Five miles distant is 

 the grove of L. Merritt, a wild grove budded. The buds are six years 

 old and ought to be bearing heavy crops, but an occasional bloom is all. 

 The trees have been in an unhealthful and "die back" condition for sev- 

 eral years. When visiting his grove in the fall of 1881, 1 told him I hart 

 6521 oi U 



