SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE, MARCH 8. Xxi 



attempt to identify it upon imported fruit by the unaided eye, or 

 with the assistance of a hand-lens, would therefore prove futile. 

 If it got into this country it was much more likely to be intro- 

 duced through plants or trees than by the importation of fruit. 

 Should it obtain a footing here there is no reason to suppose 

 that it would be more injurious than the apple mussel scale, 

 Aspidiotus conchiformis, which is, or ought to be, familiar to 

 most apple-growers. In our climate the San Jose scale would 

 probably become single-brooded, instead of, as in America, having 

 up to as many as five generations in a year. 



Scientific Committee, March 8, 1898. 

 Dr. M. T. Masters in the Chair, and three members present. 



Phytoptus ribis.—A.n interesting letter was received from 

 Miss Ormerod, giving an account of what is being done experi- 

 mentally at the Duke of Bedford's fruit farm at Woburn, under 

 the direction of Mr. Spencer Pickering, F.R.S., as to the possi- 

 bility of obtaining " mite-proof " Black Currants. The only result 

 has been some plants received from Buda-Pest, which have been 

 distributed to the Toddington fruit grounds, to Mr. Speir 

 Newton's farm, Glasgow, and to Woburn. Miss Ormerod has 

 given as exhaustive an account as she could form of the disease 

 in a special appendix to her twenty-first annual report from the 

 period of its first appearance until the present time. A series of 

 experiments is now being set on foot at Woburn directed to every 

 point which is open for serviceable action, including cbemical 

 applications. These will be followed by expert examinations of 

 the contents of the galled buds treated ; and with coincident 

 examination of galled buds under precisely similar circumstances, 

 but not treated chemically. 



Scotch Fir, Malformation. — Mr. Veitch sent a curious mass 

 of stunted boughs, the whole resembling a hedgehog, and 

 perhaps caused originally by a Phytoptus or Fungus. Dr. Masters 

 observed that short boughs, grafted from such specimens, might 

 be used as miniature trees for rockwork, &c. 



Sprouting Broccoli. — A remarkable specimen was received 

 from Mr. W. P. Wright, Willesborough, Ashford, Kent, from 

 the central and much enlarged stem of which a large number of 



