252 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Question. At what season ? 



Mr. Powell. In the spring, after the hardest freezing 

 weather is past, when you can determine the character of 

 the wood, whether it has been frozen or not. to some 

 extent. Then you can see and can detect all appearance 

 of injury to the wood. 



Professor Fernald. I would like to ask whether the 

 San Jose scale is a menace on the fruit? I am receiving 

 complaints from fruit growers in Massachusetts that in 

 some cases they are unable to market apples, pears and 

 other fruits, because of the presence of the scale on their 

 fruits. 



Mr. Powell. Yes, it is. There are two pests that it 

 seems to me are a menace to fruit groAving in the northern 

 part of New York and New England. In New York State 

 there is nothing we dread so much as the possibility of the 

 gypsy moth getting away from you and coming over there. 

 The national government should have come to the aid of 

 Massachusetts long ago in exterminating the gypsy moth. 

 In regard to the San Jose scale, that is equally a menace 

 with the gypsy moth. It is being disseminated all over 

 the country. We have some in New York nurseries, I am 

 sorry to say. We have a system by which the nurseries 

 are inspected. An agent of the Department of Agriculture 

 goes through the nurseries to discover the scale. Many are 

 fumigating nursery stock with hydrocyanic acid gas, and 

 that is certainly a great precaution ; I believe that fumiga- 

 tion is going to give us greater safety than any system of 

 inspection. Suppose an agent goes through and inspects a 

 nursery ; he may not discover the scale, or there may pos- 

 sibly be scale produced there after his inspection ; and if 

 one pair gets into the nursery, by the end of the season 

 they will have propagated something like three billion. 

 Inspection is by no means a certain way to protect the nurs- 

 ery stock, and, while fumigation is an expense upon the 

 nursery man, I believe it is the safe thing to do to have 

 his stock thoroughly and carefully fumigated before it is 

 sent out. 



Now, what about the farmers who have it on their places? 



