— 105 — 



big thing that we should adopt some system that will facilitate the 

 business, and make it known where the insects can be obtained. 



I would suggest that the State Board of Horticulture ask every Horti- 

 cultural Commissioner in the State to make a list of all the predaceous 

 and parasitic insects in his district that can be found in sufficient num- 

 bers for distribution, and send it to the State Board, to be printed in the 

 form of a bulletin, with full instructions for collecting and sending such 

 insects by mail. Such a bulletin issued annually would have a strong 

 tendency to bring about reciprocity in the distribution of these valuable 

 insects, for it would show at all times in what counties they were numer- 

 ous, and who to send to for them. Some of the new ladybirds sent over 

 from Australia by Professor Koebele are almost sure to turn up in large 

 numbers in some part of the State, and if the attention of the Commis- 

 sioners is turned in this direction they will take pride in being the first 

 to find and report these new friends. 



INTRODUCING- AND FOSTERING- BENEFICIAL INSECTS. 



By Alexander Craw, State Quarantine Officer. 



Man has naturally a good opinion of himself, for is he not the crown- 

 ing work of creation, the cap-stone of the great structure of the animal 

 kingdom, to whom was given " dominion over the fish of the sea, and 

 over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon 

 the earth"? With all this power in his possession he never dreamed 

 that a little bug, no bigger in many cases than the head of a pin, could 

 ever get the better of him, or that others could ever help him out of his 

 troubles. So when, in our early orcharding experience in California, 

 we found these little pests becoming too numerous for our profit, when 

 we found them spreading from tree to tree, from orchard to orchard, 

 sapping the very life of our trees and destroying their fruitfulness, we 

 undertook to extirpate them, by some simple process evolved out of our 

 superior knowledge. But it didn't work. We renewed our efforts, fell 

 back upon our knowledge of chemistry, invented sprays and washes, 

 tried all sorts of gases, killed a great many of our trees, but still the 

 pests would not be extirpated. In spite of all our ingenuity and our 

 ponderous methods, the little pest, hidden in cracks and crevices, came 

 forth after the combat, renewed for the struggle, and in a short time 

 were as strong as ever. In spite of all we could do with our costly 

 apparatus, expensive compounds, and wearisome labor, we were at last 

 forced to acknowledge them the victors, and all we could hope for was to 

 save a share of our products from them. And yet all this time, had we 

 not relied so much upon ourselves, there were other little friends, more 

 powerful, more patient, more persistent than we, ready to do our work 

 more effectively, and at no cost to us, if we would but encourage them 

 in their labor. 



So it at last dawned upon our understanding that there exists a com-' 

 plete set of checks and counter-checks throughout all the natural world; 

 that, as in mechanics, action and reaction are equal and contrary in 

 their effects, as there cannot be a positive without a negative, so there 

 must be some check upon these abominable scale bugs, which we had 



