~20 CROP PEST COMMISSION OF 



Many people have thought, and with good reason, that the 

 scale might be distributed upon scale-infested fruit, such as apples 

 or pears. While an infestation might result from the indiscrim- 

 inate throwing of infested fruit or parings into or among sus- 

 'ceptible plants, still we believe that very few infestations actually 

 obtain a start in this manner. A few years ago, the writer con- 

 ' ducted experiments under the direction of Prof. F. M. Webster, 

 an Ohio, in which infested fruit and parings from infested pears 

 ^and apples were placed in contact with the trunks of young apple 

 trees, but no infestation of the latter could be detected up to a 

 year afterwards, at which time the observations had to be aban- 

 doned. 



Where infested trees are pruned late in the spring or early 

 in the summer, it is possible for the pruned twigs or limbs to 

 carry living scales, as well as young lice, for some little time, and 

 if thrown among uninfested trees or plants an infestation of the 

 latter might easily result. 



Infestation of nurseries frequently results from the taking of 

 budding or grafting wood from trees in infested orchards. Many 

 nurserymen prefer to secure their buds from bearing trees when- 

 ever possible in order to be certain that their trees are true to 

 name. Slight orchard infestations by the scale are very easily 

 overlooked and hence it often happens that twigs are cut for 

 grafting or budding purposes which have upon them a few scales. 

 Occasionally individual scales are concealed beneath a bud and 

 are invisible until the bud is actually removed. A single fertil- 

 ized female is, of course, able to start an infestation that in the 

 end will prove as serious as if the infestation had been by hun- 

 dreds of thousands of scales. Doubtless more nurseries have be- 

 come infested in this manner than in any other, barring possibly 

 the purchase of stock from infested nurseries, for when even 

 a few lightly infested trees are "lined out" with healthy nursery 

 stock the infestation spreads over a considerable area of the 

 nursery during the first season. 



Nurserymen can guard to good advantage against infestation 

 by budding or grafting wood by having the orchards from which 

 the wood is to be taken inspected annually by a skilled inspector. 

 This is practiced by the majority of progressive nurserymen in 



