CHAPTER V. 



REMEDIES AGAINST COCCIDID^E. 



MANY people are under the impression that scale-insects out-of- 

 doors are not of much consequence. They are aware that in 

 greenhouses and hothouses these insects are a trouble to 

 gardeners, and that they probably injure flowering or fruit- 

 bearing plants in such situations. But they imagine that in the 

 open air, and on large well-grown trees, Coccids do no very great 

 harm ; or, if the trees are for a time injured, that recovery and 

 health will come before long, and the pest will disappear. This 

 is not the place in which to controvert this or any other opinion. 

 A work professedly dealing with facts should be as free as 

 possible from controversial discussion. Whatever, therefore, may 

 be the grounds of the opinion just stated, or the reasons for 

 rejecting it, it will be sufficient here to say that there seems to 

 be nothing to lead to the belief that New Zealand is likely to be 

 different from other countries in this respect. To institute 

 a comparison, it would be manifestly absurd to include such 

 countries as England, or Germany, or, on the other hand, India, 

 or Central America, or North Australia Firstly, because in the 

 greater part, or at least in the northern parts, of Europe the 

 winters are much more severe than in New Zealand, and almost 

 certainly the great cold is injurious to such insects as Coccids. 

 Secondly, because in tropical countries it seems that the too 

 great heat is equally obnoxious to them ; and, with the excep- 

 tion of a few species, tropical Coccids are comparatively harm- 

 less. But it is to the warmer temperate or the subtropical 

 regions that we must look for comparison regions where 

 there is neither too scorching a summer nor too ice-bound a 

 winter. And, for this purpose, we have only to take such lands 

 as California, Florida, the South of France or Northern Italy, 

 the Cape of Good Hope, the southern regions of Australia, &c. 

 The experience of these is, that some species of Coccids do in- 



