THE SAN JOSE OR CHINESE SCALE. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The San Jose scale is now known to be of Chinese origin. Its name 
is derived from its first point of colonization in America, namely, at 
San Jose, Cal., and is, in a sense, undesirable, as giving an unmerited 
notoriety to the district in California which had the misfortune of 
being the accidental place to first harbor it. A more appropriate des- 
ignation is the Chinese scale^ but it is improbable that a new name will 
ever be adopted for an insect which has become so thoroty well known 
and exploited under its original designation. 
Probably no other insect has had so much notoriety as has this-spe- 
cies, and certainl} T none has assumed so great an international impor- 
tance, as indicated by the vast amount of interstate and foreign 
legislation which has been enacted relative to it. In all the earlier 
publications of this office, beginning with Comstock's original descrip- 
tion and note in the Report of the Department of Agriculture for 1880, 
the very great economic importance and capacity for harm of this 
scale insect has been commented upon and the fact that there is per- 
haps no insect capable of causing greater damage to fruit interests in 
the United States than the San Jose or pernicious scale. 
It is inconspicuous and often for a time passes unnoticed or unrecog- 
nized. Meanwhile its enormous fecundity enables it to overspread the 
trunk, limbs, foliage, and fruit of the tree attacked (Pis. I, VI), so 
that it is only a question of two or three years, unless proper remedial 
steps be taken, before the condition of the plant becomes hopeless or 
its death is brought about. In capacity for harm this species probably 
exceeds any other scale insect known, and it attacks practically all 
deciduous plants, both those grown for fruit and the ornamentals. Its 
economic importance is further increased by the ease with which it is 
distributed over wide districts thru the agency of nursery stock, 
and the difficulty and, as a rule, impossibility of exterminating it where 
once introduced. Its capacity for evil, which was recognized in its 
earlier work on the Pacific coast, was at once even more strikingly 
demonstrated on its first appearance in the East, and before measures 
of control were undertaken it was much more disastrous in peach 
orchards of Marjdand, New Jersey, and other eastern and southern 
States than in California and the West. 
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