10 THE FLORIDA ENTOMOLOGIST 
decreasing, due to the maturing of the first flush of growth, but 
after the epidemic of Emusa it required considerable search to 
find enough live aphids to keep our life history work going. It 
was estimated that 99.9% of the aphids perished in the epidemic. 
Last year the destruction was even more complete, but did not 
occur until the middle of June, nearly two months later than 
this year. 
The damage done has been great, in the aggregate much 
greater than last year. In the territory where the aphis 
appeared early in the spring of 1924 (in Pinellas, Hillsborough 
western Polk and southward to Lee County) the general opinion 
of the growers is that this year’s infestation was somewhat less 
severe than last year’s. But the territory severely infested this 
year has been so much more extensive that the sum total of 
damage done has been much greater. Undoubtedly the crop of 
fruit has been much reduced, altho the short crop in prospect 
for next winter’s harvest cannot be entirely laid at the door of 
the aphids. Certainly the aphids are not responsible for the 
short grapefruit crop. But the damage does not stop at this 
vear’s crop. The destruction of the young growth by the aphids 
this spring has undoubtedly shortened next year’s crop, 2. e., the 
crop to be harvested during the season of 1926-27. This is indi- 
cated by the observation that the trees severely injured early in 
the spring of 1924 put out very little bloom this year and are 
carrying very little young fruit. 
In addition to the loss of fruit and of growth on the young 
trees, the growers have been put to a heavy expense for insecti- 
cides and labor expended in the application of the same. Nat- 
uurally, largely due to the inexperience of the growers with this 
new pest, much of this has been largely wasted. Insecticides 
have been applied at the wrong time or with insufficient thoro- 
ness, and, unfortunately, insecticides of poor quality have been 
sold. 
As a result of this year’s experience a number of outstanding 
facts are apparent. 
(1) The aphids do most damage in the earliest stages of the 
flush of growth of the citrus, and, consequently, control meas- 
ures will be most effective at that time. Half grown foliage, 
blossoms and young fruit will stand a rather surprisingly heavy 
infestation of aphids. An experiment carried out at Lake Alfred 
illustrates this. A number of heavily infested branches bearing 
very young fruit, blossoms and buds were selected. Half of these 
