b THE SAX JOSE OR CHINESE SCALE. 
PRESENT STATUS OF THE PROBLEM. 
The estimates given in our early publications of the seriousness of 
this pest have been more than borne out by the experience of the last 
ten 3 T ears. Since its appearance on the Atlantic seaboard in the early 
nineties it has, in spite of all efforts at control in jmrseries and by 
^tate quarantine, spread well over the eastern and middle United 
States and into Canada, so that there are now very few regions where 
fruit growing is at all important in which it has not gained permanent 
foothold. Maine and a few of the middle western States have not so 
far reported this scale insect, but it is only a question of time when 
it will complete its extension over the entire fruit-growing areas of 
North America within its climatic range. 
Nevertheless the San Jose scale has not been an unmitigated scourge, 
and the active investigations b} T the Bureau of Entomology of the 
United States Department of Agriculture and the entomologists of the 
State experiment stations have demonstrated the practicability of 
several means of control, and particularly of the lime-sulfur wash; so 
that the fears aroused by this scale insect are rapidly subsiding and it 
no longer is considered as an insurmountable obstacle to the growth 
of deciduous fruits. In the case of certain fruits, a-, for example, the 
peach, it has been found that the lime-sulfur wash has a very great 
value as a fungicide, and so much so that some growers are recom- 
mending its use whether the San Jose scale be present in the orchard 
or not. Furthermore, the presence of this scale has led to much more 
careful methods on the part of nurseiwmen and in the planting and 
care of stock, thus raising the standard and giving the intelligent and 
conscientious, painstaking grower a distinct advantage over his care- 
less neighbor. The results in the East, in other words, are folio wing- 
rather closely on the experience in California and elsewhere on the 
Pacific coast, where the San Jose scale, long looked upon as the worst 
menace of the deciduous-fruit interests, is now not necessarily so 
regarded, and the same benefits have come to California fruit growing 
by the use of better methods of planting, pruning, and care. 
This does not mean that the San Jose scale is to be lookt upon as 
a blessing. The benefits of spraying are not always uniform, and are 
less perhaps in the case of the apple than they are with the peach, 
pear, and the smoother barked fruit trees. The necessity of annual 
spraying of the trees is now clearly shown, and this amounts to a 
very large annual cost, partly offset, as already indicated, by the fun- 
gicidal value of the standard lime-sulfur application. Nevertheless, 
neither the injuries from the scale nor the cost of treatment have put 
more than a temporary check upon the advance of the fruit industry. 
and great confidence is being expresi by the larger commercial growers 
who follow out the remedies with greatest thoroness and in the most 
