92 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



feed upon several species of destructive scales. That some of 

 these later importations have multiplied and done good work in 

 restricted localities, there seems little doubt, judging from the 

 emphatic statements of members of the California State Board 

 of Horticulture and their agents and employees. Statements 

 from others as to the inefRcacy of the importations are almost 

 equally emphatic, and it is difficult for a person in the East to 

 gain a clear idea as to the present condition of affairs. 



The greatest danger in undertaking to use parasites and pre- 

 daceous insects experimentally on a large scale is that time and 

 money are lost in a dreary waiting for results which may never 

 be achieved. I would, nevertheless, not be understood as con- 

 demning careful experiments in this direction, and I am glad to 

 notice that the State Board of Agriculture of New Jersey has 

 endeavored to get an appropriation of a thousand dollars through 

 the Legislature this winter for the purpose of sending Professor 

 Smith, of Rutgers College, to California to collect natural ene- 

 mies of the San Jose scale, and introduce them into jSTew Jersey. 

 New Jersey is now the worst sufferer from this insect, and in 

 the absence of a State law compelling insecticide work, and with 

 many fruit growers disinclined to undertake any such work, 

 conditions are very satisfactory for an experiment of this kind. 

 In the beginning of the winter I had made arrangements for a 

 similar introduction of these insects, as well as of a supposed 

 fungus disease which kills the San Jose scale, into infested 

 orchards in Maryland, and there is a possibility that results of 

 importance may be gained. We have already in the East many 

 insects which feed upon bark lice, and many species of parasites 

 which destroy them. There is no practical way, however, of 

 bringing about any increase in the numbers of any of these 

 species, and their work is, from a practical standpoint, not worth 

 consideration. 



The Nursery Question. — The wide distribution of the San 

 Jose scale in the years following 1887, by Parry Brothers, by 

 J. T, Lovett and his successors, the J. T. Lovett Company; by 

 the Franklin Davis Company, Keene & Foulke, P. Boulon, Par- 

 sons & Sons, the Shady Hill Nurseries, J. A. Eamsburg. and the 

 Cherokee Nurseries, has served to draw especial attention to the 

 fact that for many years luirseries have been distributing bark 

 lice and other destructive insects far and wide. In the ffreat 



