988 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



in about the same condition regarding scale infestation as the one with 

 crude petroleum. On the other hand, the soap has some value as a ferti- 

 lizer and is undoubtedly safer to use than even the mechanical emulsions 

 of crude oil. There was little perceptible difference between the 2 and 

 the ii pound solutions. The summer spraying with 1 pound to 5 gal- 

 lons of water proved very effective in killing young scales, but it would 

 have to be repeated at intervals of about 10 days in order to obtain the 

 best results. There was some difference between the behavior of Leg- 

 gett's and Good's whale oil soap after their application, but the experi- 

 ment was not protracted enough to permit the detection of a greater 

 insecticide value in one than in the other. Good's soap is more readily 

 soluble than the other, and would be preferable on that account. 



Whale oil soap and crude petroleum combination. This combination 

 gave fully as good results as the whale oil soap solution, but its insecti- 

 cidal value was not equal to that of 20 % mechanical emulsion of crude 

 petroleum. It is possible that a larger proportion of petroleum could 

 have been used to better advantage. 



Hydrocyanic acid gas. Were it not for the excessive cost of tents, 

 specially for large trees, no better treatment could be recommended. 

 In a large orchard of small trees this would probably prove, in spite of 

 the considerable cost of the tents, cheaper in the end than spraying. The 

 trees suffered no discoverable injury beyond the slight browning of a few 

 of the more advanced buds on several trees. The records of these experi- 

 ments show that fumigation with this gas practically means the annihila- 

 tion of the scale, even when but 1 ounce of cyanid to 150 cubic feet of 

 space is used. The very few living young scales found on some of the 

 trees could easily have been, and probably were, brought from adjacent 

 infested trees. 



NOTES FOR THE YEAR 



The season of 1900 has not presented much unusual. The depreda- 

 tions by the forest tent-caterpillar of last year and the year preceding have 

 been continued, and occasionally a new insect has come to notice through 

 its destructiveness to some valued plant. Many dead grasshoppers were 

 found by George Staplin jr, Mannsville, Jefferson co. They had evident- 

 ly been killed by a fungus, which was determined by state botanist Peck 

 asMassospora cicadina Peck, a species which has hitherto been 

 recorded only from the 17 year cicada, so far as known. Say's blister 



