88 HATCH EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



responsibility for this unfortunate state of affairs rests upon 

 the Legislature, which discontinued the work of the com- 

 mission, thereby deliberately wasting all the money previ- 

 ously expended. 



The birch Bucculatrix has been in evidence during the 

 past } r ear, but, as was predicted in last year's report, has 

 been most abundant in the northern and eastern portions of 

 the State, where little had been seen of it before. 



The San Jose scale has spread rapidly during the year, 

 and is now known to occur in fifty-two localities in Massa- 

 chusetts. It is not only present in nurseries and orchards, 

 but in several instances it is generally present over areas 

 of several miles. In one place — a residential suburb — 

 nearly every deciduous tree and shrub within an area of 

 five square miles is infested, and many of the plants are 

 already dead, while others are dying. During the summer 

 the scale was found generally distributed through the or- 

 chard of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, which 

 consists of over a thousand trees. The origin, distribution 

 and present conditions in this case have been carefully 

 studied, and a special report on the subject has been trans- 

 mitted to the trustees. 



