314 >*E\V YORK STATE MUSEUM 



experiment station bulletin 81, records an instance where this insect 

 spread from an infested tree up a gully with the prevailing winds, while 

 it made no progress in the opposite direction. This insect, in badly- 

 infested orchards, is frequently found in considerable numbers on the 

 fruit, and in such cases the adult females may be producing numbers of 

 young daily in the early fall. There is no record known to me of dis- 

 tribution of the San Jose scale by means of infested fruit, but such is a 

 source of danger to adjacent orchards, where it may be carried or thrown 

 by careless boys or men : and, if it is put on the market and sold in an 

 uninfested locality, it may result in the introduction of the scale there. 

 All that is necessary is that such fruit with bearing females be left close 

 to a suitable food plant. This danger should be guarded against so far 

 as practicable. 



Careful investigations by the officials connected with the United States 

 department of agriculture at Washington have shown that there is not 

 the slightest danger of living San Jose scales being carried on dried 

 fruits, as the drying is fatal to the insects. 



Preventives of attack. The most efifectual and in most cases the 

 most practical method of preventing injury by this insect lies in excluding 

 it from the orchard. There are even now localities in Long Island where 

 the infestation of adjacent trees is bound to nullify any attempt to exclude 

 this pest. Exclusion is possible, however, in most places m the state. A 

 fruit- grower's first care should be to admit to his premises no trees or 

 shrubs of any kind that may harbor this or other dangerous insects. 

 The inspection of nurseries of New York state has done much to render 

 difficult the sale of stock infested with this scale insect ; but there 

 is always a chance that some infested trees may be received by a 

 dealer from outside, become mixed with that pronounced clean by the 

 inspector and sold as such, and there is also a small possibility that once 

 in a while a few infested trees may escape the inspector's eye. There 

 have been several cases in this state where a very tew of these scale in- 

 sects must have lived on trees supposed to be clean for three to five 

 years, at the end of which time it was suddenly found that they were 

 badly infested with the pest. These facts are exceedingly strong argu- 

 ments in favor of buying only stock that has been thoroughly fumigated 

 by hydrocyanic acid gas, as this treatment is the best safeguard against 

 the occasional scale insect. 



Not only is it necessary to prevent the actual introduction of scale-in- 

 tested stock in the orchard or on the farm, but the fruit-grower will soon 



