8 THE SAX JOSE OR CHIXESE SCALE. • 



PRESENT STATUS OF THE PROBLEM. 



The estimates oiven in our early publications of the seriousness of 

 this pest have been more than borne out by the experience of the last 

 ten years. Since its appearance on the Atlantic seaboard in the early 

 nineties it has. in spite of all eliorts at control in nurseries and by 

 State quarantine, spread well over the eastern and middle United 

 States and into Canada, so that there are now verv few reoions where 

 fruit growing is at all important in which it has not gained permanent 

 foothold. Maine and a few of the middle western States have not so 

 far reported this scale insect, but it is only a question of time when 

 it will complete its extension over the entire fruit-growing areas of 

 North America within its climatic range. 



Nevertheless the San Jose scale has not been an unmitiofated scourofe, 

 and the active investigations by the Bureau of Entomology of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture and the entomologists of the 

 State experiment stations have demonstrated the practicability of 

 several means of control, and particularly of the lime-sulfur wash: so 

 that the fears aroused by this scale insect are rapidly subsiding and it 

 no longer is considered as an insurmountable obstacle to the growth 

 of deciduous fruits. In the case of certain fruits, as, for example, the 

 peach, it has been found that^he lime-sulfur wash has a very great 

 value as a f uno-icide, and so much so that some o-rowers are recom- 

 mending its use whether the San Jose scale be present in the orchard 

 or not. Furthermore, the presence of this scale has led to much more 

 careful methods on the part of nurserymen and in the planting and 

 care of stock, thus raisino- the standard and g-ivino- the intelliofent and 

 conscientious, painstaking grower a distinct advantage over his care- 

 less neighbor. The results in the East, in other words, are following 

 rather closely on the experience in California and elsewhere on the 

 Pacific coast, where the San Jose scale, long looked upon as the worst 

 menace of the deciduous-fruit interests, is now not necessarily so 

 regarded, and the same benefits have come to California fruit growing 

 by the use of better methods of planting, pruning, and care. 



This does not mean that the San Jose scale is to be lookt upon as 

 a blessing. The benefits of spraving are not always uniform, and are 

 less perhaps in the case of the apple than they are with the peach, 

 pear, and the smoother barked fruit trees. The necessity of annual 

 spraying of the trees is now clearly shown, and this amounts to a 

 very large annual cost, partly offset, as already indicated, b}' the fun- 

 gicidal value of the standard lime-sulfur application. Nevertheless, 

 neither the injuries from the scale nor the cost of treatment have put 

 more than a temporary check upon the advance of the fruit industry, 

 and great confidence is being exprest b}' the larger commercial growers 

 who follow out the remedies with greatest thoroness and in the most 



