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Root Knot on Apple Trees. 



A copy of Bulletin No. 20, Division of Entomology, on the root-knot disease, which 

 was sent to my former address at Glencoe, Nebr., has just reached me. I have been 

 interested in the perusal of Dr. NeaPs notes from having had some experience with 

 root-knot myself. 



In the spring of the present year I bought several hundred two-year-old trees of 

 willow twig and Ben Davis apple from a local nursery. In planting I found the roots 

 of many were very knotty; those worst affected having few fibrous roots. Not one 

 in ten of some four hundred put out any leaves from the tops, but most of them sent 

 out sprouts from the side of the trunk at or near the ground, which shoots made a 

 weak growth. I had requested the proprietors of the nursery to give me trees of their 

 own raising and supposed they had doue as they agreed to do, but some of their em- 

 ploye's afterward told me that my trees must have come from Kansas, as they " got 

 all those knotty-rooted trees from that State." 



Dr. Neal does not mention apple among the plants affected by Anguillula, and for 

 this reason, and also because he thinks his evidence conclusive that the disease does 

 not exist 150 miles from the coast, I have thought it worth while to bring this mat- 

 ter to your notice. Many of the trees died during the drought of July and August. 

 About seventy-five trees of Ben Davis and Maiden Blush, brought from same nursery 

 same spring, but a few days later, and which had good fibrous roots showing no knots, 

 have grown and done as well as usual in a dry season.— [G. M. Dodge, Louisiana, 

 Pike County, Mo., November 11, 1889. 



Reply. — Your letter of the 11th instant has been received and referred to the En- 

 tomologist, who reports that he is obliged to you for your notes on Anguillula, and 

 that he himself has for some time been aware of the fact that many other plants were 

 damaged by these creatures in addition to those mentioned by Dr. Neal; also that 

 the work is by no means confined to the vicinity of the sea-coast. The knots on 

 Apple, however, may have been due to some other cause.— [November 20, 1889.] 



A Fuchsia Aleurodes. 



The fuchsias in my bay window are infested with scale-like cocoons, on the under 

 side of the leaves, from which emerges a tiny white fly. Please tell me something 

 about it. I send specimens of cocoons and flies in a wax cell mounted on a slide. 

 It is so arranged that you can remove the cover glass if you find it necessary. The 

 flies are alive. What are the peculiar objects like crystals? They polarize prettily, 

 not unlike horn or keratose. Besides the mount, I send leaves infested. — [Samuel 

 Lockwood, Freehold, N. J., January 15, 1K)0.] 



Reply. — The little insects which you find on fuchsia leaves belong to a species of 

 the genus Aleurodes. I have had this form for some time, but it is yet undescribed. 

 The family Aleurodidw, as you know, holds a position between the Aphididse and the 

 Coccidse, and has not been studied in this country. — [January 18, 1890.] 



The Skein Centipede and Silver Fish. 



There are two creatures that have the freedom of this town, about which I have 

 heard a great deal of nonsense talked, and now wait for some sensible information. 

 Whether they are insects or not, I do not know ; I wait for you to tell me, but cer- 

 tainly they must often stroll into the suburbs of your province. I never knew any one 

 who could give a popular name to the first creature, which, for the sake of distinction, 

 I call in the house a centipede, which it is not. The first I ever saw was five inches 

 long, at least. I thought it was a skein of brown silk in a tangle, and picked it up 

 from the carpet with thumb and finger. I have never seen another as large, but the 

 wet weather brings them into the bath-room in two sorts, one as I have described it, 

 brown and tangled, the other of the same general shape, but with distinct antennae 

 at one end, and something similar at the other, black and smoky in color. If you kill 



