2 
probably been introduced upon nursery stock purchased in the East 
about 1890. During the month of March, 1894, the State Board of 
Agriculture of Virginia, with the help of an agent of this Division, 
fumigated the infested trees at Charlottesville with hydrocyanic acid 
gas, and it is probable that the scale has been exterminated at this 
point. It was deemed necessary to perform this operation before the 
hatching of the young lice and their spread to the neighboring 
orchards. 
During the same month (March, 1894) specimens were received from 
the Florida State Agricultural Experiment Station, with the statement 
that they had been sent in by correspondents at De Funiak Springs, 
Fla. They are said to occur throughout a 30-acre orchard, and to 
have been imported from California about 1890. During the same 
month specimens were brought to this office from Riverside, Charles 
County, Md., and immediate examination by an assistant in the Divi- 
sion, who was sent to the spot, showed that more than 1,000 peach and 
apple trees are infested in this locality. Specimens received showed 
a degree of infestation which we have never before seen. The owner 
stated that the scales were first noticed three years ago, and expressed 
himself as of the opinion that the insect was brought into this orchard 
on nursery stock purchased from a New Jersey dealer. 
PROBABILITIES OF ITS OCCURRENCE ELSEWHERE. 
If, as we have little doubt, the insect was first introduced into the 
Charlottesville and Riverside orchards upon nursery stock purchased 
from eastern dealers between 1887 and 1890, the probabilities are 
strong that other stock purchased from the same dealers at about the 
same time was also infested. It is not necessary that the stock pur- 
chased from these eastern dealers should itself have come from Califor- 
nia, since eastern stock in the nursery may have become infested from 
California stock in the immediate neighborhood. The scale, therefore, 
without much doubt, exists in other parts of the East, and measures 
have been taken by the Department to ascertain all the points at which 
it occurs. The importance of such knowledge can hardly be exagger- 
ated. The insect spreads rapidly, for a scale-insect, and is the most 
dangerous scale known. 
It is inconspicuous, and will hardly be noticed by the average fruit- 
grower until it has become very abundant—so much so, in fact, as to 
practically incrust the bark. Remaining unnoticed in any one local- 
ity, it is a constant and immediate menace to the fruit-growing inter- 
ests for many miles around. The constant portage of nursery stock 
all through the fruit-growing States of the East, from south to north 
and from north to south, from east to west and from west to east, 
affords the most favorable opportunities for the spread of the insect, 
and there exist at present absolutely no restrictions by which this 
spread can be limited. 
