26 MIGRATION, DISTRIBUTION, ACCLIMATISATION, ETC. 



placed in quarantine, and subsequently, I believe, the 

 Hamburg Senate granted permission for " the further 

 export of the consignments to England." 



This led to an inquiry by the hon. member for Mid- 

 Oxfordshire (Mr. Morrell), and on March 2nd " Mr. 

 Lambert asked the President of the Board of Agri- 

 culture whether in cases of American pears imported 

 into Hamburg large quantities of live scale insects 

 were found, which were quite capable of contaminating 

 the orchards of that country, and whether any danger 

 of like infection from similar causes existed in this 

 country.' 



Mr. Long: " The official information which we have 

 received from the German Government goes to show 

 that the reply to the first inquiry is in the affirmative. 

 With regard to the second, I cannot say there is no fear 

 of the arrival of the pest in question in this country, 

 and I am in communication with experts on the 

 subject with a view to ascertain whether any practi- 

 cal steps could be taken by us in the interests of 

 British fruit-growers."* On the day previous to 

 this reply (March 1st) I received a telegram from 

 the Board of Agriculture summoning me for confer- 

 ence at Whitehall the next day, and which I at- 

 tended. On the 24th of March following the secretary 

 (the Hon. Walter Long, M. P.) kindly invited me to at- 

 tend a special committee meeting of the Board of 

 Agriculture, held at the House of Commons. The dis- 

 cussion which took place at both meetings was either 

 directly or indirectly in connection with the " San Jose 

 Scale Insect." I was able to inform the Department 

 that Aspidiotus per&iciosu* had certainly not established 

 itself in this country either upon fruit-trees or culti- 

 vated plants of any kind, whether grown in the open 

 air or under glass, or upon indigenous plants ; and 

 further, that should the species be inadvertently intro- 

 duced into this country on fruits or plants I did not 

 think it would be at all likely to establish itself on fruit - 



* ' Standard,' March 3rd, 1898. 



