INTRODUCTION. 
This Bulletin contains some communications and reports by agents 
of the Division on insects affecting orange trees and the cotton plant, as 
well as on some miscellaneous insects. We have not attempted to ver- 
ify the results recorded in the reports, but have endeavored to identify 
as far as possible the specimens referred to. 
The use of kerosene emulsions is just now attracting much attention, 
and as there is some conflict of experience as to their value, we repeat, 
in this connection, our views on the subject as recently discussed in the 
Scientific American. 
On the Pacific coast the horticulturists have, during the last two 
years, been very active in their attempts to effectually destroy scale- 
insects; and Mr. S. F. Chapin, a member of the State Horticultural 
Commission, has recently published an extensive and interesting report 
(vide late numbers of the Pacific Rural Press), which bears evidence of 
careful work, and in which kerosene is condemned and various applica- 
tions of lye and whale-oil soap are strongly recommended as sufficient for 
the object in view. Now, our own experience with scale-insects, and that 
of Mr. Hubbard, show that neither of these two substances bears com- 
parison with a proper kerosene emulsion as an effectual destroyer of 
seale-insects and their eggs. 
We have intimated in the annual report for 1881-82 that the discrep- 
ancy on the Pacific coast and in Florida can searcely be explained by 
difference in the species dealt with, but doubtless depends on the difter- 
ence in the trees treated and the methods employed. The experiments 
recorded in this Bulletin refer chiefly to orange trees. 
Mr. Chapin refers in his experiments mainly to pear trees, and occa- 
sionally to other northern fruit trees, the report being headed, in fact, 
“Scale insects on Deciduous and Ornamental Trees.” The orange is 
not a deciduous tree, and was evidently not experimented on. Other 
insecticides were used by him upon pear, peach, apple, almond, prune, 
and plum. Now, there is no doubt but that the action of kerosene 
proves more injurious to some plants than to others, and in sufficient 
quantity is hurtful to all. It should, therefore, be used with caution 
where its effects are not already known, and never employed pure. 
Even the orange receives a shock from its judicious application, though 
there is abundant proof of the fact that young, vigorous shoots of this 
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