35 



Alfred W. Hinde, of Anaheim, Los Angeles County, California, which 

 we think of sufficient interest to publish : 



"This is the most common species of scale insect found in southern 

 California, being especially partial to the orange and olive, on which it 

 thrives and increases very rapidly. It appears to do very little harm 

 to the tree itself, even when allowed to multiply undisturbed to its full 

 capacity. But, owing* to the sweet secretion which the scale is con- 

 stantly exuding, and which drops on the leaves and branches, it is 

 always accompanied by a species of black fungus, which thrives on the 

 sweet secretion combined with moisture. It is this fungus which does 

 the real harm, for it grows on the fruit as well as on the leaves and 

 branches. In the case of olives it renders the fruit unfit for making a 

 fine quality of oil ; and with oranges it renders the fruit so unsightly 

 that it does not bring near the price that clean fruit does, unless 

 each orange is thoroughly rubbed with a moist cloth, which is a very 

 tedious process. When the scale is killed the fungus disappears, hence 

 the fight against the scale. It is one of the easiest species to kill; a 

 good kerosene emulsion, if thoroughly applied, is sure death to them, 

 provided it is given at the right time, viz., just after the young have 

 left the shelter of the parent scale. To make a thorough job of it 

 the trees should have two sx)rayings, at intervals of several weeks, 

 as all the young do not hatch out at the same time. A year ago 

 last September we gave our old seedling orange trees a good spray- 

 ing with a kerosene emulsion, but owing to our lack of experience in 

 mixing the oil and soap, it was not a thorough emulsion, and hence 

 only killed about 50 per cent, of the scale. The season, of 1884 was 

 extremely wet, and I find that the black scale increases much more 

 rapidly in a wet than in a dry seasou. This wetness, combined with the 

 ineffectual spraying, caused the fungus to greatly increase, and the or- 

 anges were extremely dirt}', more so than in any previous season that I 

 can remember. The present season (1885) has been the exact reverse 

 of last season, being so dry that we have had less than one inch of rain- 

 fall since the first of January last to the present date (November 1). 

 Besides being dry the summer has been very hot; at two periods a few 

 weeks apart in August and September the mercury rose to 107° in the 

 shade. At the first hot spell the heat continued for nearly a week. A 

 few days after this hot week we noticed that all the old scale appeared 

 to be dead on the orange trees. I could hardly believe that the hot 

 weather could do this, so I made further examinations, and then I would 

 have another doubting fit and start out and examine them again, but 

 always with the same result, viz., I would not find more than two or three 

 live oil-scale on the trees. The young ones I did not think to look for, 

 as they were probably not yet hatched, except in a lew instances. Then 

 we had the last very hot day, September 23, when a thermometer placed 

 in the sun, four feet from the ground, registered 118°, with a hot, burning 



