50 



Mr. Alwood stated that lie had used kerosene for two years, spraying 

 it upon the plants undiluted, and his results have, in the main been 

 very satisfactory. Where he used it himself with proper caution he 

 never killed a plant of any kind; and in most cases where he advised 

 others to use it the results have been very good, with few exceptions. 

 One of the most marked of these exceptions he had happened to examine 

 immediately after the treatment had been completed, and the trees had 

 been completely drenched with the kerosene, so that it flowed down the 

 trunks in quantity; the result was that the trees were killed. These 

 trees consisted of about twenty full-grown bearing peach trees and 

 three pear trees which had been two years set. The treatment was 

 applied in the fall just as the foliage was maturing. In one notable 

 instance, a fruit grower applied the kerosene under his instructions to 

 several hundred Japanese plum and Kiefl'er pears in the spring just as 

 the buds were beginning to open and not a tree was killed or percepti- 

 bly injured, yet the San Jose scale was almost entirely destroyed by 

 the one application. On part of these trees the treatment was repeated 

 about two weeks later when they were coming into bloom; yet no harm 

 resulted from this second application. Where the second application 

 was given he had for the past two seasons been unable to find a live 

 scale. During the past spring he had had treated under his direction, 

 but not by trained men, a large number of premises, including small 

 house grounds and orchards of considerable size, with the result that at 

 this date not a single case where the trees were killed has been reported 

 to him. On the contrary, every report has been favorable. The appli- 

 cations were made during the entire spring, beginning when the trees 

 were still dormant and continuing until they were in full bloom, and 

 included all varieties of fruit trees, pears, peaches, plums, and apples. 

 In some cases the treatment was applied purposely when the trees were 

 in full bloom to see whether it would have any effect upon the setting 

 of the fruit or upon the trees themselves. The man who had done this 

 work reported that up to the preseuttime absolutely no harm had been 

 done to the trees, and part of them had been inspected by Mr. Alwood, 

 and he was unable to discover any injury whatever. In Montgomery 

 County and at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, he had a large num- 

 ber of trees treated both with pure kerosene and with dilutions ranging 

 from 15 to 50 per cent kerosene, and where the application has been 

 made with proper weather conditions and in a cautious manner, no 

 harm has resulted ; but where he purposely had the work done in dark 

 or stormy weather, or had the application repeated either the same day 

 or within a few days, the result had been harmful, and in some cases 

 the plants have been destroyed. But in all the work that has come 

 under his personal observation, including all classes of fruit trees, where 

 the applications have been made in a properly atomized spray under 

 proper weather conditions, no injury has resulted, and the San Jose 

 scale has been, as a rule, destroyed by the one application. In fact, he 



