75 



ister, Mr. Conger, assured me that he was very fond of the jelly which 

 is prepared from it. It is the most abundant fruit seen in all the mar- 

 kets of North China, and is even shipped as far south as Hongkong. 

 I examined a great many bushels of these different fruits, the red crab- 

 apples and haw apples, and throughout the market I found them all 

 infested with a scale insect which resembled exactly the San Jose scale 

 and was later identified as such. Perhaps one apple in a hundred 

 would have a few of these scales about the blossom end, and about the 

 same proportion was true of the haw apple. 



In making these examinations great excitement was caused among the 

 Chinese market people, no possibl e explanation occurring to them for my 

 curious and unusual conduct in overturning their baskets of apples and 

 pawing them over and taking out one specimen out of a hundred or 

 two, and invariably a great crowd of Chinese, jabbering excitedly, 

 surrounded me. Occasionally finding a man who could speak a little 

 pigeon English, I would give the only explanation which they seemed 

 to understand, namely, that I was picking out certain minute insects, 

 which I showed to them and allowed them to examine through my 

 glass, which were of exceptional value as medicine. The use of 

 insects for medicine being common in China, this explanation at once 

 reinstated me in the esteem of all. 



The finding of the San Jose scale scattered over these fruits in the 

 Pekin market was a very interesting discovery. The haw apple is a 

 wild fruit growing over the hills of this section of China. The native 

 crab is the apple which has been grown in this region from time imme- 

 morial. The occurrence of the San Jose scale on these two fruits 

 and on the native pear also has but one explanation, namely, that in 

 this section the scale is native. The fact of its scattering occurrence 

 is what one would expect under the circumstances, namely, in a region 

 where a scale has always occurred it has reached the balance with its 

 natural enemies, so that it is rarely, if ever, injurious. 



The conditions indicated in the markets of Pekin were substantiated 

 by examinations in Pekin and in Tientsin. Pekin was an utterly 

 destroyed city and very little of residences or gardens were left for 

 examination. Tientsin was little injured by the war, and a good many 

 gardens were examined. Fruit growing in this region, however, does 

 not occur to any extent, and the gardens simply exhibited a few trees 

 and chiefly the ornamental plants of the region, notably the Chinese 

 flowering peach, which is grown solely for its bloom, its fruit being 

 diminutive and not edible. This peach I found nearly everywhere 

 scatteringly infested with the San Jose scale, and always with it the 

 ladybird, Chilocorus simiUs. This predaceous insect seemed to sustain 

 the same r61e throughout north China as in Japan. At Tientsin, 

 through the courtesy of the German medical authorities, I was able to 

 make a microscopical examination of the scale insects, and demonstrated 

 beyond question that they are the San Jose species. 



