1897.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — Xo. 33. 87 



president promised to have burned. An examination made 

 late tliis fall reveals the fact that the scale has not been 

 entirely cleared from it. How widely this scale may be dis- 

 tributed in this State I am not able to say. 



On the 12th of May I received a letter from L. C. Holt, 

 Esq., of Ashby, Mass., and also a box of caterpillars which 

 he stated were in immense quantities on the blueberry bushes, 

 entirely stripping them of their leaves, and that unless some- 

 thing were done at once there would be no blueberry crop, 

 and this would be a great misfortune, as many poor people 

 derived quite a revenue from the berries picked from these 

 bushes. The caterpillars proved to be the currant span 

 worm (^Diastictis rihearia Fitch) ; but the great difficulty 

 which now presented itself was to offer some remedy which 

 would not be as expensive as the value of the crop. I could 

 think of no better or cheaper mode of destroying these span 

 worms than to spray the bushes with Paris green in water, 

 in the proportion of one pound of the former to one hundred 

 and fifty gallons of the latter, and advised this course, if the 

 crop was of sufficient importance to warrant the expense. 

 This is the first time I have ever heard of this insect attack- 

 ing the blueberry. 



On the 17th of November I received a letter enclosing 

 some twigs with scale insects on them from Mr. James 

 Draper, who wrote me that they were taken from a golden- 

 oak tree in one of the gardens of the city of Worcester, Mass. 

 The scales proved to be what is known by the name of Plan- 

 chonia quercicola, a European scale insect which has been in 

 this country for some time. The first account of it here, so 

 far as I know, was given in the report of the Department of 

 Agriculture for 1880, page 330, where it is stated that it was 

 found upon the imported oaks in the Department of Agri- 

 culture grounds at Washington. The insect has been found 

 in New Jersey and also in New York, as I am informed by 

 Professor Howard. It is regarded as a very injurious scale, 

 and every effort should be made to destroy it by cutting off 

 and burning the infested twigs, and thoroughly spraying the 

 trees with whale-oil soap dissolved in water. 



