164 



It is our firm belief, founded upon personal observation in Califoruia, 

 that tliorousjli and persistent work with any one of a half dozen of the 

 kerosene and resin compounds will prove satisfactory. So far as we 

 can learn they have by no means received a fair trial. The experiments 

 made by Mr. Koebele in 1886 and 1887 have demonstrated the efficacy 

 of certain of these washes to our entire satisfaction, and we feel positive 

 that we could keep a young grove comparatively free in the worst in- 

 fested district at an expenditure which would not be excessive. Where 

 the insect has attained a firm foot-hold in an old grove, it is of course 

 very difficult to eradicate; but young groves can be protected, and in 

 our opinion the horticulturists are making a very great mistake in en- 

 tirely dropping the washes and devoting so much time to the expensive 

 cyanide-gas treatment. We do not understand, after what has beeni 

 definitely proved in this direction, how such a vital mistake could have 

 been made as indicated in the case of the man who spent all his money 

 on the caustic washes and seriously injured his trees. Nor can we 

 sympathize so much as we otherwise would with those who have felt 

 themselves obliged to abandon the cultivation of oranges and lemons. 



A correspondent in California, wishing to use the fumigation process 

 for destroying orange scales, was informed by the proprietors of an ap- 

 paratus for confining the fumes that the^^ possessed patents not only 

 upon their mechanical devices but also upon the process of fumigation. 

 Upon receiving word from our correspondent of this state of affairs we 

 took occasion to look the matter up, and came to the conclusions indi- 

 cated in the following sentences which are extracted from our final 

 reply : 



I have had a most careful exaraiuation made at the Pateut Office here iu Washing- 

 tou, with the result that, while I readily fiud the record of the issuing of a pateut to 

 the Culver- Keach people for their apparatus, I can not fiud the slightest trace of a 

 patent on the "process of fumigation with gas" issued to these people. This claim 

 is probably set up by them for the purpose of keeping other parties out of the field. 

 Moreover, the Pateut Office has decided in the case of other parties that the "pro- 

 cess " can not be patented, since the so-called Hatch pateut covered the same ground, 

 and as this patent has expired the process has become public property. The essential 

 features of the gas treatment were discovered by Mr. Co(iuillett as an outgrowth of 

 the work he was doing for the Government under my direction, and the results have 

 been made public and are public property. So long as you do not infringe ou the 

 mechanical principles used in the fumigator you need, in uiy judgment, pay little 

 heed to claims for gas treatment. 



Introduction of living Parasites : Success of the Mission to Australia.— 

 W^e had intended publishing in our general notes of this number a^, 

 quotation from the South Australian Register of October 27, giving 

 an account of the apparent success of the mission of Mr. Koebele, one 



