-4- 



Massachusetts orchardists interested in soil and land improvement 

 and conservation CEinnot afford to overlook the possibilities of the two bills 

 on soil conservation now before the legislature of this state. Both bills 

 offer advantages to orchardists, but an important difference is that one of 

 the bills (H.621) provides a definite procedure for setting up local, farmer- 

 controlled districts for soil improvement and conservation; the other bill 

 (H.777) does not do this. H.621 gives a maximum of local control. 



— A. B. Beaumont 



Terraces Hold the YiTater. At the Spur, Texas, Experiment Station two 

 adjacent 10-acre fields were planted to cotton for 12 years. The 

 fields appear nearly flat, but have a slope of six inches per hundred 

 feet. The soils are of the same type. One field has closed, level 

 terraces and is tilled on the contour. The other field is not ter- 

 raced and is tilled up-hill. The average cotton yield from the unter- 

 raced field was 109 pounds per acre, from the terraced field 177 

 pounds per acre. Value of the extra yield on the terraced field 

 was $7.60 per acre, annually. The terraced field lost no soil or 

 water. The unterraced field lost considerable quantities of soil 

 and 11.5 per cent of all rain. 



Imagine the problem of a would-be peach grower in 

 Essex County v/hen the expressman delivered (on one 

 of the coldest days last month) a peach tree which 

 had been ordered from a southern nursery, presumably 

 for spring planting. 



SAInT JOSE SCALE 



The tremendous increase of San Jose scale in Massachusetts apple or- 

 chards in 1944 is undoubtedly due (l) to favorable biological and climatic 

 conditions, and (2) to changes in pest control practices which encourage a 

 rapid build-up of the scale. 



The San Jose scale, vifhich hibernates as partly grown nymphs, suffers 

 high vdnter mortality from low temperatures, and several times during the 

 last ten years it has had severe set backs by freezing. Fatal winter tem- 

 peratures for San Jose scale are approximately the same as for peach buds 

 and there was little injury to either scale or peaches in the winter of 1943- 

 44. ITith a high survival last spring, the abnormally v:arm weather throughout 

 the summer favored maximum reproduction and survival of the young in addition 

 to enabling the development of three or four generations instead of the usual 

 tv;o or three. Yifhen the young crav;lers are born, they crawl over the branches 

 for 1 or 2 days before settling on the bark, and at this time they may be 

 spread from branch to branch or tree to tree by the wind, on the feet of birds, 

 bees, or other large insects. Reproduction is tremendous, and it has been 

 calculated that the progeny from a single female living in the climate of 

 Yfashington, D.C would number 3,216,080,400 by fall if all survived. Normal- 

 ly, parasites keep small infestations of the scale in check but the favorable 

 growth conditions in 1944 permitted the scale to out«distance the parasites. 



The most effective spray treatment to control San Jose scale is a dor- 



