Feb. 1907.] 



105 



Plant Sanitation. 



efforts wei'emade to send certain parasites of plant lice from England to New Zealand 

 but without recorded results of value. In 1880, in an article in the Annual Report of 

 the Department of Agriculture for that year, the speaker showed that the transport- 

 ation of scale-insect parasites is especially easy and especially desirable. In 1883 

 Prof. C. V. Riley imported a common European parasite (A panteles glomerulus) of 

 the imported cabbage worm from England into the United States. It has since 

 established itself in this country and is a valuable aid in cabbage culture. 



All previous experiments were completely overshadowed by the remarkable 

 results of the importation of Novius (Vedalia) cardinalis a lady bird, from Australia 

 into California in 1889. For three years beginning Avith 1886, Professor Riley, then 

 Entomologist of the Department of Agriculture, had recommended to the authorities 

 in Washington that an effort be made to study the natural enemies of the scale in 

 Australia and to introduce them into California, since he had determined by corres- 

 pondence that Australia was the original home of the species and that on that 

 contintent the scale was not especially injurious. California fruit growers petitioned 

 Congress to the same effect. Finally, during the winter of 1887-88, the Secretary of 

 State, at the request of the Commissioner of Agriculture and of Professor Riley and 

 of Mr. Frank McCoppin, of California, Commissioner-General to the Melbourne 

 Exposition, appropriated funds for this purpose ; and an assistant in the Division of 

 Entomology, Mr. Albert Koeble, was sent to Australia on the Melbourne Exposition 

 fund. He found the famous lady bird, Vedalia cardinalis, in North Adelaide, and 

 made several sendings to southern California where the insects were cared for by 

 another assistant in the division of Entomology, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 

 Mr. D. W. Coquillet. In less than a year, on Californian soil, the lady bird had multi- 

 plied so extensively as to practically destroy the fluted scale and to reduce it to a 

 condition where it was no longer a factor in the cultivation of oranges and lemons. 

 The same insect was later introduced from California into New Zealand and into 

 Portugal and into Egypt, with similar striking results. In 1893 Mr Koeble resigned 

 from the Department of Agriculture and was employed by the State Board of 

 Horticulture of California to proceed again to Australia and other points in a 

 general search for beneficial insects. He made extensive trips and imported a 

 number of beneficial insects into California, one of which, a ladybird known 

 as Rhizobius ventralis, proved to be of value in reducing the numbers of 

 the black scale in such portions of California as were near the sea, notably in the 

 large olive plantations owned by Mr. Ellwood Cooper, of Santa Barbara. Hundreds 

 of thousands of the beetles were distributed in California, and in some localities 

 kept the black scale in check. Away from the moist coast regions, however, it 

 proved to be less effective. 



Subsquently the speaker introduced from Italy a curious little Chalcidid 

 parasite known as Scutellista cyanea, and endeavoured to acclimatize the species 

 in Lousiaua upon the wax scale. The parasites however, died out. Later other 

 specimens of the same parasite were sent to the speaker from South Africa by Mr. 

 C. P. Lounsbury with the statement that it is there a parasite of the black scale. 

 With Mr. Lounsbury's help, South African specimens were introduced into Cali- 

 fornia and there colonized by Mr. E. M. Ehrhorn, Horticultural Inspector for Santa 

 Barbara County, and Mr. Alexander Craw, Quarantine Officer of the State Board of 

 Horticulture. The first successful introduction occured in 1900, and during the 

 following years it was constantly distributed in California and by the close of 1903 

 many orchards had been practically freed from the black scale, and the good work 

 still continues. 



After Mr. Koebele's second oriental trip he resigned his position in California 

 and was einployed by the newly established Hawaiian Republic for the purpose of 



