24 



States, but there is great danger that it may soon become so 

 through the distribution of infested nursery stock, if the most 

 active measures are not adopted for its destruction. 



The dissemination of this insect in the Eastern States has been 

 traced by the entomologist of the Department of Agriculture in 

 "Washington to nursery stock received from Missouri and New 

 Jersey. Prof. J. B. Smith, in " Entomological News," Vol. 6, 

 page 153, and elsewhere, mentions two large nurseries in New 

 Jersey that were badly infested with this scale, and from which 

 infested stock had been sent to various points in the Eastern 

 States. One of these was owned by Messrs. Parry, at Parry, 

 Burlington County, N. J., the other by the J. T. Lovett Company, 

 at Little Silver, Monmouth County, N. J. 



Prof. L. O. Howard, entomologist to the Department of Agri- 

 culture in Washington, in studying the geographical distribution 

 of this and other insects in connection with the life zones into 

 which this country has been divided, has expressed the opinion 

 that the San Jos«^ scale is not likely to thrive on fruit trees in 

 New England, for a time at least. Professor Smith seemed to 

 entertain the same opinion, based on his studies of the distribution 

 of the insect in New Jersey. I had therefore felt quite easy about 

 the matter, so far as Massachusetts was concerned, till, on the 

 29th of March of the present year, my attention was called to 

 some scale insects on several young plum trees on the grounds of 

 the horticultural department of the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 College. These trees, according to the record books, came from 

 the J. T. Lovett Company, Little Silver, N. J., in the spring of 

 1894. Fearing that we had this dreaded insect to deal with, I 

 sent infested twigs to Professor Howard for determination, and 

 received the reply that they were the San Jose scale, but that 

 none of the examples sent were alive. 



Wishing to determine whether any of these insects had survived 

 the winter, I had two of the trees taken up and set out in the 

 cold part of the insectary greenhouse, and the remaining infested 

 trees were burned. Scales appeared on the growth of the previous 

 year, so that the insects succeeded well at least during the summer 

 of 1894. On June 10 live scales were observed on the trees 

 transplanted to the insectary greenhouse, and on the 14th the 

 young were swarming all over them, and even extended to some 

 small apple trees growing near in the same part of the greenhouse. 

 As this seemed to settle the question of their ability to survive 

 our winters here in Amherst, or at least the winter of 1894-95, 

 which was an average one, I had all these trees very carefully 

 burned, to prevent any further spreading of the pest. So far as 



