54 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



badly infested pear orchard early in April. One of the standard 

 concentrated lime-sulphur washes was used and an effort made to 

 do very thorough work, though owing to the softness of the ground, 

 the height of the trees and a moderately high wind, conditions were 

 not so favorable as they might have been. Some of the trees were 

 in such bad condition that large limbs were dead or nearly so as 

 a result of the infestation, and many of the smaller limbs were 

 fairly incrusted with living scale. The one treatment resulted in 

 practically cleaning up the pest. 



An examination last August on another farm showed an equally 

 satisfactory result under different conditions. Owing to certain 

 unfavorable developments the preceding year, it was impossible to 

 spray the apple orchard under consideration and, to make matters 

 worse, the treatment of the preceding year or two had not been 

 any too thorough. As a consequence, in August 1912 many of the 

 trees were very badly infested, the limbs being literally covered 

 with scale and a number of branches dying. Last fall the pest was 

 so prevalent that the owner even refused to sell the fruit for cider 

 apples. This orchard was sprayed last fall and again in the spring 

 with a standard lime-sulphur wash and, as a result of the treatment, 

 very little scale was to be found last August, aside from a scattering 

 infestation on an occasional limb. Most of the fruit was so clean 

 that there was no reason for suspecting the presence of the insect. 

 These results were secured on moderate sized apple trees about 

 twenty years old and with a trunk diameter of 6 to 8 inches. 



Several small four-winged parasites became exceedingly abundant 

 in a number of badly infested orchards in various parts of the 

 State. A personal investigation in several Schodack, Stuyvesant 

 and Poughkeepsie orchards showed these beneficial insects generally 

 distributed and in several localities very abundant. The latter was 

 confirmed by an examination of representative limbs. One twig 

 only an inch in length and five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter 

 had 184 exit holes. In another case it was estimated that 85 per 

 cent of the scales had been destroyed by parasites, though owing 

 to the natural variation in the degree of infestation and the fact 

 that parasitism is not easily ascertained prior to the emergence of 

 the adults, it was impossible to do more than make an approximate 

 estimate. The appearance of parasitized scales is shown on plate 15, 

 figure I. 



A tabulation of our rearings shows Prospaltella per- 

 n i c i o s i Tower to be a well-distributed and rather abundant 



