71 



The Japanese are extraordinarily ambitious to equal other nations 

 in all lines of productive activity as well as in social and political life, 

 and hence one finds io going over the Empire an astonishing number 

 of places where limited experiments with American fruits are being 

 carried on in private gardens and the like, and this fact accounts for 

 the wide dissemination of the San Jose scale throughout central and 

 southern Japan, where fruit raising, especially of the deciduous sort, 

 is insignificant. 



It was noted also that in the more remote islands where such intro- 

 ductions had been little if at all made, and in districts where new stock 

 had not penetrated, there was no San Jose scale on old native trees. 

 Furthermore, the interior mountain regions which some have thought 

 might be the original home of the scale are entirely free from this 

 insect, save in rare places where it occurs on recently introduced stock. 



The belief also that the absence of the scale, or its being not 

 much in evidence is due to a natural resistance of the native fruit- is 

 without foundation. The native pear trees, when the scale is brought 

 to them by new stock, are subject to the infestation quite as much as 

 the foreign stock. In the case of old gnarly trees of half a century or 

 more standing the chance of great infestation is. of course, less, as it 

 would be under the same circumstances with the old trees in America. 

 But young native stock seems to be just as subject to attack as foreign 

 varieties. There is an immunity, however, in the case of the Japanese 

 peach, but this is not complete, and is to be explained by the very 

 rough bark developed by this tree, especially in the central and south- 

 ern provinces. 



Anyone studying the San Jose scale in Japan at the present time 

 without a knowledge of the horticultural history of the country and 

 especially its recent development, as indicated above and in my former 

 communication, might very readily and naturally be deceived by the 

 present distribution of this scale insect throughout the islands — as one 

 might similarly be deceived by a study of the present conditions in 

 America — and conclude that Japan (or America) is the native home of 

 the scale. 



Not only might the present wide distribution of the San Jose scale 

 in Japan lead to the belief that it is there a native species, but appar- 

 ent confirmation of this belief would be forthcoming in the finding, 

 very rarely, it is true, of old native pear trees attacked by this insect 

 with no new stock near by to account for the infestation. Two such 

 cases were noted by the writer, and may be described to illustrate 

 this point. Near one of the buildings of the Agricultural College at 

 Kumomoto, in the island of Kiushu. stood an isolated old native pear 

 tree which was somewhat infested with San Jose scale. At the 

 moment there seemed no way of accounting for this infestation, but 

 within a distance of not many rods was found a planting of ycung 



