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range of hills intervening in this instance. Inspectors Loney and Pease 

 each called my attention to orange trees containing beetles and larva?, 

 one orchard in Pomona and the other across the line in San Bernardino 

 County. 



A colony of Rhizobius ventralis was placed in the Centenella orchard 

 at Inglewood, on September 23d, and upon examination of the trees 

 December 14th, I found larva? from very small to nearly full grown. 



I visited San Diego on the 17th and 18th of December, and with W. 

 R. Gunnis, County Horticultural Commissioner, inspected several places 

 where colonies were put. The ladybirds have got a start here and 

 several orchards show their good work. The home orchard of Hon. 

 Frank A. Kimball, that was so seriously infested one year ago, is now 

 clean and Mr. Kimball has distributed a great many colonies of lady- 

 birds to his neighbors. We visited an olive orchard about three miles 

 from Mr. Kimball's, where Mr. Gunnis placed a strong colony about six 

 days previously. The twigs of these trees as well as the leaves were 

 completely covered with young black scales. This will be a good 

 orchard in which to collect ladybirds the coming summer, as there is 

 an abundance of food for them. 



On December 23d I visited an orange orchard in Ventura County 

 with J. F. Mclntyre, County Horticultural Commissioner. A colony of 

 Rhizobius ventralis was placed in this orchard in October, 1893, and no 

 trace of them could be found for over a year, when they snowed up, and 

 on my visit the larva? as well as beetles were plentiful, besides a few 

 Rhizobius debilis. Mr. Mclntyre reports the beetles and larva? as num- 

 erous in more interior districts upon lemon, apricot, and olive trees. 



On December 26th, with Judson House, County Horticultural Com- 

 missioner, I inspected an orchard at Riverside, where I liberated a 

 colony of Rhizobius ventralis on September 21st, and found the larva? 

 in various stages and on a number of trees away from where the colony 

 was placed. 



The orchards of M. C. Heminway and Chas. R. Hails, near Goleta, 

 Santa Barbara County, were colonized in September, 1893, and during 

 September and October, 1894, Prof. T. N. Snow, of Santa Barbara, col- 

 lected from these and adjoining orchards thousands of these beneficial 

 insects and distributed them throughout his county and also sent several 

 large colonies to other districts. At present these orchards are free 

 from scale. 



Your own orchards are the most convincing proof of the great value 

 of these ladybirds. The constant warfare against the scale, represent- 

 ing an annual expenditure of from $3,000 to $5,000 in your orchards 

 alone, is now saved and your trees already show increased vigor. Dur- 

 ing the time I collected the Rhizobius ventralis in your orchard, the 

 beetles were as plentiful as I ever saw the Vedalia cardinalis when the 

 cottony cushion scale was being suppressed by that beetle. Over 

 1,000,000 Rhizobii have been collected in your orchards and distributed 

 throughout the State, which will in a short time save thousands of dol- 

 lars to the orchardists, besides increasing the vigor and productiveness 

 of their trees. 



I also examined the " steel-blue ladybird" (Orcus chalybeus) colony 

 at Los Angeles. While this ladybird does not increase as rapidly, 

 nevertheless it has done very good work. The lemon and orange trees 

 where they were placed now present a very marked improvement in 



