1 
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NOTES ON VARIOUS ORANGE INSECTS. 25 
naked eye it escapes notice, and the leaves of the tree being damaged 
the tree stands still. In every case of fruit splitting that I have exam- 
ined the rust mite had damaged the leaves, and sometimes, but not 
~always, P. pergandii was on the trunk and large limbs. 
A solution of one part murvite to five hundred parts water is instant 
death to rust mites, also to migratory scale-insects. 
A number of large trees that were making no growth, and were not 
infested by scale insects, on examination were found to be covered with 
rust mites. These trees were sprayed with a weak solution of murvite 
September 14; examined October 26, they were found covered with an 
abundance of new shoots. 
Many bronzed oranges on the trees, sprayed with strong solutions of 
murvite whilst the oranges were growing, turned bright.* 
Statements concerning the influence of soil, cultivation, manuring, 
and position are worthy of notice. The majority of the trees treated 
have been highly manured, many of them carefully cultivated. Some 
were on high land, some on low land, some on wet, some on dry, some 
exposed with no protection of buildings or trees, some close to houses 
and protected on every side, some on land naturally rich, others on land 
naturally poor, some groves well drained, some not. I find no differ- 
ence in the work of the insects on trees thus variously located. In rich 
hammock land trees are killed down by them as badly as on high or 
low pine land. 
A fungoid growth, of which I send.a drawing, was found on Par- 
latoria and Mytilaspis towards the end of the rainy season, and for 
some time after during the dry weather of September. Whenever found 
with capsules developed on Mytilaspis the contents of the scales were 
dead. On Parlatoria its effect was not ascertained, as the insects in 
every stage of life, with a large number of dead, existed under the 
greatest growth of fungus. Disappeared about the end of September. 
A red fungus was also noticed, but it disappeared before any decided 
results could be attributed to it. Scales of some sort were always asso- 
ciated with it. 
Several wild orange trees, sour and bitter-sweet, quite as badly scaled 
as any sweet trees, were sprayed, but on examination so small a number 
of eggs were present that they were left for general results. 
Ceroplastes is very easily destroyed. After an application of 1 part 
murvite to 40 parts water, in two days I could find but few on the tree, 
and none living. 
Murvite does not dissolve readily in cold water. Ifdissolved in a small 
quantity of warm water it may afterwards be diluted with cold water 
to the extent desired. 
The decisive results obtained by these experiments are: 
The practicability of immediately arresting the progress of injury to 
the orange tree by certain varieties of scale insects. 
*We have serious doubts as to the accuracy of this conclusion.—C. V. R. 
