440 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [Jan. i, 1895. 
ft ' black scale (Lecatihim oteee) by some of the last 
"'imported lady-bird beetles. I visite J these orange 
" ' orchards, the first being one where fifteen of the 
" ' lady-bird beatles had been introd uced last October. 
"'This orch ird, whicb consists of orange and lemon 
" ' trees, was very dirty with the fun gus, and the 
*' 1 carcases of old last year scales were exceedingly 
" f abundant. Upon close examination it was found 
" ' that there ware almost no young scales. An oc- 
"• casional young black scale (Lecanvum oh « .) and 
'"In one place several soft brown scales (Lecanimn 
" ' hesperiduni) were, after long looking, discovered, 
" ' while the little beetles were exceedingly abundant. 
" ' This was to me an exceedingly interesting object 
" ' lesson. I had read how the Vedalia had cleaned 
" ' out the cottony scale, and here saw how even the 
" ' more destructive black scale had been devoured 
" ' by the later importation from Australia. Next 
" ' day we visited the 1,700 acre estate of Hon. EU- 
" ' wood Cooper of Ellwood, fourteen miles north- 
" ' west of Santa Barbara, where the beetles were 
" ' first introduced, and where they have been watched 
" ' very carefully by Mrs. Cooper, to whom morethan 
" ' to any one else we are indebted for these saviours 
" ' of the orchards of California. We first visited 
" ' the large olive orchard, where the beetles were 
*' ' originilly introduced. Mr. Holland, himself a 
' 1 lirge o'.ive grower at Pomona, saw this orchard two 
" ' years ago. He said the transformation was most 
" ' marvellous. Two year6 ago it was filthy with the 
" ' secretion o' th s bluk sca'e, crowded with millions 
"'of thes? terrible pest', and ha thought utterly 
"'ruined. No* it was clean, bright and vigorous. 
""'We could find no living sci'e, and only oue of 
" ' the little bene'actors, which we found after re- 
" ' peated trials. Itbade.'id nt'y remaine 1 behind 
" ' to clean up the few remaning scales, which we 
" ' were unab'e to find. 
" ' WtJ nexi visit >da large walnut orchard, anl h re 
"'alio found Bhizobius debilis and It. toowoombn 
"'hard at work in fore, cleani g cut I ha aphid-;. 
'•'Mr. Coopor next took U3 to a 50-'cr<3 or-halof 
" ' o'.jyea, w'.nre Rhizob'ids ward introduced last 
"' October, and which was at that lime suffering 
" ' fearfully from black scale. Tha beetl s were in- 
" ' troducjd at one end of the orohir] and are now 
" ' just completing the'r ble33ed work at the other 
" ' end, a>-out a half mil) distant. We could see the 
'"'altered foliage and renewed vi ;or, whi'e many 
" ' rods away. Upon examination we f tiunl t <e li'tl , 
" ' bee. lea in countle33 miltituda', and the scales 
" ' naarly gone, while at the end of th i orchard where 
" ' the beetles were first introda-el, there are almost 
" ' no scales or beetles. To Bbow the irn, ort- nee of 
"'this, Mr. Cooper tella me that lu used to spsLd 
' $3,000 to $5,000 annually in spraying this orchard, 
" ' and even the results were far from satisfactory — 
"'not to be compared with the woik of the 
" ' Ehizobiiis. ' " 
The- <S*j» Fianiisco Examiner of Oct. 19, 1894 has 
the fo.l<tting article headed "The Black Scale 
Doomed " :— 
!• The little black lady-'oird introduced into this 
" Stat j f:0 » Australia about two y ars a is 
•'proving itself as relentless n e ej.13 0| b. te 
" b'ack scale ai was Die Vedalia CarorinaUi which La« 
" eff <ctua''y d.-slro, ed the cotton cushion pest through- 
" 1 ut California. 
" 8 J complete has beei the wo.k of the newcomer 
" in Santa Barbara couoty, where it was fi at c .lionized, 
'that there is danger of iti perishing fr >m 1 vck 
"of alim nt. Quirantin* Officer Oraw has be so 
" sum noned in haste to the S-iuthern county by 
"Ellwood Cooper to devise some means of saving 
" bis pats, who are worth far more than their weight 
" in gold to the horticulturist. For.uuately during 
"a visit to the Soath, from which iu has jo t 
" returned, Mr. Craw learned that the beetle 
" had t uned it) attention to tie walnut aud orange 
'• ap'iids, noxio is insects which propagate them )elves 
"rapidiy. anlwi'l furnish nourishment tj the avowed 
" en my of the black scale. Where the proper parasite 
" ia o ice established it h not d ttirable that the pest 
"on which ii feeds should be thoroughly eradicated. 
"Toe id a! conliti an of affairs is that it should be 
" reduce I to the minimum quantity commensurate 
" with the sus.enaau of its enemy. Should 
"(his res ilt not be accomplished there would again 
" be d 11 g c of the reiutrodu;lion of the pest after 
' the dls n'pearanie of its pansite, and the fruit- 
" grower w jullonce more be reluced to the costly ani 
" ineffe tual process of spraying It 
"is dimjj.lt t> pas t a pecuniary estimate on tie 
" value of t c enemy of the black scale. In one 
'• r s ect, h jwever, the saving in spraying and 
fumgi'.ing will probably represeat $100,000 a year 
" to the horticulturists of California 
" Tuere are fou- or five fruit growers in Los Angeles 
" c unty alone who pay out an averagj of $10,000 
" each anmijlly iu battling agaiast the black s.ale. 
" All th s will be saved, for the little beet e coHs 
" Lothing. Tlien, in addition to the e.-onjiny, the 
"trees will be ni ire hea'thful and conieqaently will 
" bear more plentifully and a b. -tier qui'ity of fruit. 
" The officers uf t .e B ard of Horticulture are satis- 
" tied that the bla :k scale is doom d." 
[We leel we hive beau very remis> in Ce leu In 
n t t king s Bps i . past da\sto fi^ht " black " " w!i to " 
ai-d "green ' : bug on our coffee by means of intr.di.ced 
laly-b rds.— Ed. T.A.] 
Rain and Forest Fires.— If forest fires 
produce rain— says the Daily Chronicle, — the im- 
mense conflagrations in Michigan, Wisconsin, 
and Minnesota last summer ought to have deter- 
mined the point. But rain did not, unhappily, 
follow them, so that the rain-makers' theory is 
about as defective as their practice. The area 
covered by the fires was 5,000 snuare miles, anil in 
this limited space the heat produced was hotter 
tb.an the hottest sun of June in the ratio of 
10,000 to 750. Bat before the effects of the smoke, 
and therefore the warmth of the air, was alto- 
gether lost by radiation a space of 1,000,000 
miles was covered. However, taking the extra 
heat produced in this area and comparing it 
with that of the sun over the entire country, the 
former is, according to Professor Cleveland Abbe's 
calculation, fifteen times that of the latter — a 
closet conclusion which may he doubted. If, 
however, it is correct, the old epigram about a cow- 
boy's carelessness in dropping a lighted match on 
a dry prairie disturbing a meteorological predic- 
tion is smarter than science justifies, 
