35 
Alfred W. Hinde, of Anaheim, Los Angeles County, California, which 
we think of sufficient interest to publish: 
“This is the most common species of scale insect found in southern 
California, being especially partial to the orange and olive, on which it 
thrives and increases very rapidly. It appears to do very little harm 
to the tree itself, even when allowed to multiply undisturbed to its full 
capacity. But, owing to the sweet secretion which the scale is con- 
stantly exuding, and which drops on the leaves and branches, it is 
always accompanied by a species of black fungus, which thrives on the 
sweet secretion combined with moisture. It is this fungus which does 
the real harm, for it grows on the fruit as well as on the leaves and 
branches. In the case of olives it renders the fruit unfit for making a 
fine quality of oil; and with oranges it renders the fruit so unsightly 
that it does not bring near the price that clean fruit does, unless 
each orange is thoroughly rubbed with a moist cloth, which is a very 
tedious process. When the scale is killed the fungus disappears, hence 
the fight against the scale. It is one of the easiest species to kill; a 
good kerosene emulsion, if thoroughly applied, is sure death to them, 
provided it is given at the right time, viz., just after the young have 
left the shelter of the parent scale. To make a thorough job of it 
the trees should have two sprayings, at intervals of several weeks, 
as all the young do not hatch out at the same time. A year ago 
last September we gave our old seedling orange trees a good spray- 
ing with a kerosene emulsion, but owing to our lack of experience in 
mixing the oil and soap, it was not a thorough emulsion, and hence 
only killed about 50 per cent. of the scale. The season of 1884 was 
extremely wet, and I find that the black scale increases much more 
rapidly in a wet thanin adry season. This wetness, combined with the 
ineffectual spraying, caused the fungus to greatly increase, and the or- 
anges were extremely dirty, more so than in any previous season that I 
can remember. The present season (1885) has been the exact reverse 
of last season, being so dry that we have had less than one inch of rain- 
fall since the first of January last to the present date (November 1). 
Besides being dry the summer has been very hot; at two periods afew 
weeks apart in August and September the mercury rose to 107° in the 
Shade. At the first hot spell the heat continued for nearly a week. A 
few days after this hot week we noticed that all the old scale appeared 
to be dead on the orange trees. I could hardly believe that the hot 
weather could do this, so | made further examinations, and then I would 
have another doubting fit and start out and examine them again, but 
always with the same result, viz., I would not find more than two or three 
live oil-scale on the trees. The young ones I did not think to look for, 
as they were probably not yet hatched, except in afewinstances. Then 
we had the last very hot day, September 23, when a thermometer placed 
in the sun, four feet from the ground, registered 148°, witha hot, burning 
