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SCIENCE 



[Entered at the Pos.-Offlce of New York, N.Y ., as Second-Class Matter.J 



A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF ALL THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



Ninth Yeab. 

 Vol. 2VII. No. 415. 



NEW YORK, Janltary 16, 1891. 



Single Copies, Ten Cents. 

 $3.50 Per Year, in Advance. 



THE OUTLOOK FOR APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY.' 

 International Interests. 



With the constantly increasing facilities for intercommu- 

 nication between different parts of the globe, the results ob- 

 tained and experiences bad in one part are soon available 

 for the rest of the world. Thus France has more than repaid 

 the United States for the good, however vast and important, 

 that has resulted to her by the use of American resistant 

 stocks. Her experience with these American vines has re- 

 acted beneficially upon our own viticulture in many direc- 

 tions, but particularly in the great advance which her sons 

 tave made in insecticides and fungicidesvand in convenient, 

 portable insecticide and fungicide appliances. It has often 

 been said of the French that they are not an originating 

 people. However that may be, they are very quick at 

 adopting and improving ideas and discoveries once brought 

 to their notice, and no nation is more appreciative of the 

 immense practical benefits to be received by the adoption of 

 the most scientific methods. In fact, no nation has given 

 greater government incentive to the pursuit of science in its 

 bearings upon the welfare of mankind, and we may study 

 with profit what she has of late years done in our own line. 



I had a delightful visit last August from Mr. John West, 

 who came to this country as a delegate from Victoria to 

 ascertain all he could of our methods; also from Mr. W. 

 Catton Gasby of Adelaide, who also visited this country in a 

 similar capacity. Economic entomology in their part of the 

 world is extremely interesting to us ; for while the seasons 

 are reversed, as compared with ours, many of the same in- 

 jurious insects occur in both countries. Thus I was glad to 

 get perfect confirmation from Mr. West of the fact that the 

 Northern Spy and the Winter Majetin are found to protect 

 the apples grafted upon them from the woolly Aphis. A 

 great deal has been published of late years in the New Zealand 

 and Australian papers on "blight-proof" apple stock, and 

 they have had an important experience, the outcome of sore 

 necessity, for Schizoneura lanigera has there been one of 

 the most serious drawbacks to apple-culture. 



There can be no question but that this experience will 

 prove of value to our apple growers wherever these varieties 

 succeed and the woolly Aphis abounds. The use, as stocks, 

 of such varieties as enjoy immunity from the woolly Aphis, 

 has occurred to our own people, but no such extended ex- 

 perience has been had in regard to any particular resistant 

 variety. Some of our injurious insects are often worse in 

 Australia than they are with us, and we may e.xpect to reap 

 the benefit of the experience had there with regard to them. 

 This will doubtless be true not only of the codling-moth, but 

 of theii peach Aphis, which, from all that I can learn, is 



' Continued from p. 80, Science, Jan. 9. 



evidently the same species as that which does so much 

 damage in our lighter soils along the Atlantic coast, and 

 which Dr. Erwin F. Smith of the Division of Mycology of 

 the department at Washington has studied lately, and de- 

 scribed in great detail as a new species under the name of 

 Aphis persicce-niger, but which I have reason to believe is 

 the Aphis prunicola of Kallenbach. , 



The Italians have been making a very interesting fight 

 against an insect which has threatened their very important 

 and extensive silk industry by its attacks upon the mulberry- 

 tree. This insect was described by Targoni Tozzetti in 1885 

 as Diaspis pentagona. It occurs upon a number of differ- 

 ent trees, among them the paper mulberry, the spindle-tree, 

 the peach, the cherry, laurel, and certain willows, as well as 

 upon the cultivated white mulberry, and it would seem that 

 its taste for the last-named tree is one recently acquired, 

 judging from the late date at which the habit has attracted 

 attention. The energetic director of the Entomological Ex- 

 periment Station at Florence investigated the species in 1886, 

 and recommended the use of mechanical means at the time 

 of hatching of the young; viz., the scrubbing of the trunks 

 and larger branches with stiff brushes, and a subsequent 

 application of a mixture of soap and water with four or five 

 per cent of kerosene. 



Professor Franceschini, the editor of the Rivista de Bachi- 

 coltura, recommended the adoption of the Balbiani formula 

 as used against Phylloxera, consisting of crude tar-oil, 

 naphthaline, quick-lime, and water; the naphthaline being 

 dissolved in the tar-oil, and the water and lime afterward 

 added together. The insect appeared first in several cantons 

 of the province of Como, and speedily spread to the adjoin- 

 ing localities. The matter was brought to the attention of 

 the Ministry of Agriculture, and a commission was appointed 

 consisting of Professor Targoni Tozzetti, Dr. Alpe, and Dr. 

 Andres, who immediately familiarized themselves with the 

 methods in use in this country, and have made extensive 

 experiments with our kerosene emulsion, with our fumigating 

 processes, and with other new remedies. The subject has 

 been taken in hand with great vigor, and the government 

 has interested itself to the extent of appointing inspectors in 

 the different communes in the infested territory, and estab- 

 lishing regulations which oblige the immediate report of new 

 localities and the adoption of measures of extinction when 

 ordered by inspectors. These regulations also provide that 

 the inspectors must do the work at the expense of proprietors 

 when the latter refuse to do so. They prohibit the exporta- 

 tion of leaves from infested localities to others, and provide 

 for indemnity to owners for the destruction of trees wlien the 

 degree of infection is such as not to threaten the ultimate 

 life of the trees. Expenses for experiments of all kinds, and 

 for the watching and care exercised by agents, are borne by 



