THE NEW EARTH 



cisco. But few of the eggs were hatched out, 

 seventeen all told, and of these only four were 

 females. One of these latter was killed by a 

 spider which had been hidden in a curled-up 

 leaf in the case, leaving but three tiny insects 

 to do battle against a host unnumbered. But 

 the three were equal to the emergency. Each 

 one hatched out many eggs, the greater por- 

 tion of these eggs in turn hatched out other 

 flies, and soon there were quite a number of 

 colonies ready to be liberated. They began 

 their work in the season of 1905, wherever the 

 scale was found, and at once the scale began 

 to disappear. 



The apricots of the fruit regions of Califor- 

 nia have been subject to a brown scale which 

 not only destroys the young fruit and foliage, 

 but which forms such thick incrustations upon 

 the trunk and branches as to imperil the life 

 of the tree itself. Other trees, particularly 

 plums and prunes, are subject to its attack- 

 To meet this pest whenever it appears in dan- 

 gerous quantities, the commission keeps on 

 hand a supply of brown flies, very small in 

 size, smaller indeed than the tiny ladybird, 

 almost microscopic — the foe of the scale. On 



96 



