ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 97 



Col. Watrous inquired further if there were any way by which the insects could be 

 killed on imported stock so that it would be safe to plant the trees and propagate from 

 them. I want to know if it is absolutely necessary that they be burned or reshipped. 



Prof. Webster : They could be disinfected by using hydrocyanic acid gas, the 

 management of which you can get by applying to the Department of Agriculture at 

 Washington. It is a very expensive treatment.* One receiving infested stock, if he 

 did not send them back, could hold the trees at the order of the shipper. I" do not 

 see that the nurseryman should be called upon to take them at all or to take the respon- 

 sibility and expense of disinfecting them. 



Mr. Jewett asked what had been done in California. I have heard that they have 

 exterminated it in some localities. 



Prof. Webster : They have practically exterminated it in some localities ; but they 

 seem to have handled it very carelessly, and it may be said to cover the whole state more 

 or less. They have used the lime, salt and sulphur wash. This has not been fully 

 effective, and further than that we have found in the East that a treatment of great 

 value in California is not so here. They have a resin wash there which it is claimed is 

 fatal. With us it will not kill twenty-five per cent. 



A Member asked if there was danger of the San Jose Scale spreading rapidly unless 

 infested trees were taken up. 



Prof. Webster : It is not the travelling of the insect itself, the spread in that way 

 is not rapid ; but it may be carried by the wind or by the young insects crawling on to 

 birds which frequent the trees and being by them carried to other trees — so that it is 

 dangerous to have it anywhere. It does not spread very rapidly, and if carefully sprayed 

 it can be controlled and even stamped out. There are four or five places where I know 

 it has been stamped out in Ohio. I would take up and burn any very badly infested trees. 



A Member: Could the Scale be carried from - Calif ornia on fruit shipped to us. 



Prof. Webster: Yes, it is carried all over the East; but how great the danger may be 

 I do not know. The greater part of the fruit is consumed in towns and cities, and unless 

 the infested fruit is thrown down so close to the trees that the young insects can make 

 their way from the waste peeling to the tree, then there is no danger. I do not look 

 upon|this as a serious feature of the case, although it would be well to watch it. 



LEPIDOPTEROUS PESTS OF THE MEADOW AND THE LAWN. 



By the Rev. Thomas W. Fyles, F.L.S,, South Quebec. 



I very much doubt whether I shall ever see again what was no uncommon sight on 

 the older farms in the " flats " and "intervales " of Brome, Sheflord and Missisquoi counties 

 thirty years ago, viz. : — a field of Herd's grass Phleum pratense, L.), clean and tall, 

 unspecked with Ox-eye (Leucmithemum vulgare, Lam ), Cone-flower (Rudbeckia hirta, L.), 

 and Charlock (Sinapis arvensis, L.). 



I perfectly remember the first appearance of the Ox-eye daisy in Brome. A hot, dry 

 season or two had made a scarcity of fodder, and men had gone down to the J< French 

 country" around St. Cesaire, St. Pie and St. Marie to buy hay. In the spring, a year or 

 two years afterwards, an old-country farmer, Mr. Terence Courtney, of Iron Hill, pointed 

 out to me, here and there by the wayside, along the line of travel, tufts of " the daisy " 

 which had no doubt grown from seeds shaken from the loads brought in from the low 

 country. He cut up those on his own farm > but his neighbors were not so careful, and 

 now, in hay time, all the meadows round are white with the troublesome weed. 



* Note. — It has since been discovered that this treatment is not effective against the San Jose" Scale 

 unless applied for a longer time than can safely be done without inj urine: the trees treated. Dr. Howard, 

 in a recent publication, "Some Scale Insects of the Orchard," says : "With the San Jose" Scale the most 

 satisfactory work can be done only with a winter wash." ... "Up to the present writing, but one 

 absolutely satisfactory winter wash against this insect in this locality has been found. This is whale-oil 

 soap, a pound and a half or two pounds to the gallon of water. " — J. Fletcher. 



7 EN. 



