REPORT OP THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST 1902 127 



11, 1901. The day was an ideal one, there being very little or 

 no wind most of the time and the temperature ranging from 

 about 30° in the shade to 68° in the sun. The trees were dry, 

 and, despite the fact that there had been considerable cold 

 weather and much snow the previous week, the trunks of the 

 trees, even to the very base, were well exposed; consequently 

 the insecticide could be applied to the greatest advantage. Most 

 of this experimental work was limited to an exceedingly badly 

 infested orchard of young appletrees near Albany. A number of 

 these were dying and a considerable proportion of them were in 

 extremely bad condition, owing to the work of this scale insect. 



20$ mechanical crude petroleum emulsion. This mixture was ap- 

 plied to 23 appletrees in the above mentioned orchard. The oil 

 was obtained of the Derrick Oil Co. of Titusville Pa., and, after 

 being drawn from the barrel, tested 41.1° on the Beaume' oil scale. 

 The spraying was carefully done, and, under the exceptional 

 weather conditions noted above, practically every portion of 

 each tree was covered with the mixture. The sprayed trees 

 were numbered 344-66, and their condition at the time of spray- 

 ing was as follows: nos. 344-347, 349, 350, 353, 355, 355a, 

 357, 361-363 were all very, very badly infested with the 

 scale, a large proportion of the bark being literally covered by 

 the pest. Trees 348, 352 and 359 were dead. Tree 351 was very 

 badly infested, and trees 354, 358 and 364 were rather badly 

 infested. A few scales were to be seen on tree 360, 365 was badly 

 infested, and only a stump remained of tree 356. 



In addition to the appletrees named above a number of other 

 kinds of fruit trees on adjoining premises were sprayed with 

 the crude petroleum. Most of these trees were in a fairly vigor- 

 ous condition, though a few were somewhat badly infested by 

 the scale. 



An examination of the appletrees in midwinter raised consider- 

 able apprehension and . it was feared that the insecticide had 

 caused serious injury, but investigation Mar. 10 showed that 

 the crude petroleum had not damaged the trees so much as was 

 feared. The tips of some branches were dead, and a number of 

 trees had died during the winter; but, as most of them were in 

 very bad condition on account of scale infestation, it is hardly 

 fair to attribute all the damage to the insecticide applied. In 



