SUPPRESSION OF INSECT PESTS AND PLANT DISEASES. 19 



most troublesome pest we have is the red scale (Aspidiotns aurantii), for which as 

 yet no effective parasite has been found, arid we have to apply the hydrocyanic acid 

 gas treatment, which is somewhat expensive, but effective. 



The introduction of parasites to combat injurious pests is of California origin, and 

 the results attained have gone on record as the greatest of boons to California inter- 

 ests. With California, which nature has decreed to be "the orchard of America/' 

 if not of the globe, other States are equally interested in protective legislation. 

 When we destroyed a cargo of 325,000 orange trees from Tahiti infested by the min- 

 ing scale, an insect that no remedy can destroy, as it lives under the bark, thereby 

 preventing the scale from obtaining a foothold, not only was California benefited, 

 but all other States shared with her, for if the scale had spread among our orchards 

 it would have been only a short time when it Avould have been carried to every citrus- 

 growing State in the Union, either on trees, scions, or fruit. The many thousands 

 of infected trees and plants destroyed on their arrival in this State from foreign 

 countries was a bar to their introduction into the East, for many such plants and 

 trees are reshipped after landing; and while we grow the fruits of every zone, the 

 whole world has the same interest in our success, or at least should have the same, 

 that it has in the success and prosperity of other specially favored regions of our 

 marvelous country. 



Mr. Lelong's paper was the last of those prepared by request. It 

 was announced that Mr. Gerald McCarthy, entomologist of the North 

 Carolina Experiment Station, had a paper to present. The convention 

 voted that the paper be read. It was as follows : 



CROP PESTS AND THEIR REPRESSION BY LAW. 



It is a fact that no practical horticulturist will dispute that crop pests are more 

 numerous and destructive now than they were formerly, or only twenty-five years 

 ago. Then to plant a tree or a crop and tend it with only old-fashioned care was to 

 insure a harvest, and generally a satisfactory one. Now no one can secure even an 

 apology for a crop without unremitting care and much "doctoring" of the plants. 



The cause of this change is not hard to find. It is the boast of our time that 

 methods of transportation have become so perfect that commerce, even in the case of 

 such perishable articles as fresh fruits and living plants, has extended to the ends of 

 the earth and our markets are supplied with fresh productions of all countries and 

 climes. But the reasons and appliances which suffice to bring us such useful products 

 suffice equally well to bring, and in fact do bring, us the crop pests formerly peculiar 

 to different and distant climes. As to the seeming increase in the voracity of our 

 native pests, this is more apparent than real. It is not that our native species of 

 insects eat more than formerly, bufc rather that we, by our continual and extensive 

 improvement in cultural varieties of plants, have rendered the latter more or less 

 artificial and not fair representatives of the originally vigorous stock. We no longer 

 dig up trees from fence corners or chance seed beds. We seize upon spontaneous 

 variations and by our improved methods propagate and fix these so-called improve- 

 ments. Improvements they may be from a human or economic standpoint, but from 

 a. physiological standpoint they are too often degenerations. We also plant these 

 pampered trees in large blocks, and this fact explains why our more improved varie- 

 ties become less and less able to withstand the assaults of their natural parasites. 



Well, we must accept modern progress even with its concomitant evils, but by 

 national measures and precautions we can greatly decrease, if not extirpate, many 

 of these evils. We have not met here to-day to condole with one another, but to 

 devise such legal measures as shall tend to prevent the introduction and dissemina- 

 tion of these parasites. 



