FIFTEENTH ANNUAL ^MEETING. 57 



Report on Injurious Insects of the Past Season. 



By \V. E. Bkitton, State Entomologist. 



In its aiiiittal report, this ciminiittee is not always able to 

 chronicle the outbreak of new fruit pests, for which we are 

 thankful, not can it always record the unusual prevalence or 

 absence oi the old and familiar ones. The season of 1905 was 

 not very ditTerent from other seasons as regards the attacks 

 of fruit insects. Though the preceding winter was a severe 

 one, it was marked by a long period of steady cold rather than 

 bv excessively low temperatures. When very hard freezes 

 occur directly after warm periods, the result is usually far 

 more destructive to both insect and plant life than during a 

 steady cold winter. 



Scale insects are received from correspondents oftener than 

 other kinds of insects. San Jose scale leads all other species 

 in this respect, three times as many samples being received in 

 1905 as of either the oyster shell or scurfy scales, which are 

 about equally frequent. 



Thirty-five per cent, of the San Jose scales were killed 

 during the winter. Spraying in the orchards was quite gen- 

 eral throughout the State, the lime-sulphur washes being the 

 most satisfactory spray mixtures. In our experiments over 

 6,000 orchard or bearing trees were sprayed in INIarch and 

 April. These are located in Westville, West Haven, Middle- 

 town, Southington and Westport, and v.'cre mostly peach, but 

 •included pear and apple. Five different mixtures of lime and 

 sulphur were tested, including the ordinary boiled mixtures, 

 prepared with caustic soda, sal soda and sodium sulphide 

 respectively, were given a trial, and all were fairly effective. 

 The best results from a self-boiled mixture were obtained with 

 20 lbs. Lime. 



10 lbs. Suli)hur. 



10 lbs. Sodium sulphide. 



40 gallons Water. 



The figures resulting from our enumeration of the scales 

 show this to have been slightly more effective than the boiled 

 mixture, though there was very little difference, and we can 



