15 
porting into the State of New Jersey natural enemies and parasites from 
other States and countries. The appropriation was made, and in the 
spring of 181)0 Dr. Smith, the entomologist, visited parts of California 
and secured the sending of several species of Australian Ladybirds to 
various places in New Jersey and to Washington. In his report for 
1897, received February L6, 1898, Dr. Smith says: 
Nothing has been seen in 181)7 of the California Coccinellids introduced in lS!»f>. 
Most of the places in New Jersey in which they were introduced were searched by 
myself on several occasions, but not a sign of the species bas been noticed. 
No result has been obtained from the specimens scut to Washington, 
no living specimens having- been seen during 1897. 
An interesting and important development of the past two seasons' 
work, however, has been the identification and study of the parasitic 
fungus Sphcerostilbe coccophila. Professor Rolfs, of the Florida station, 
has devoted a bulletin largely to the consideration of this fungus, which, 
as previously stated, seems to be prevalent throughout the Southern 
States. lie has shown experimentally that the fungus may be trans- 
ferred to trees affected with San Jose scale and the disease produced 
among. the scales. His process was to inoculate acid bread with pure 
cultures of the fungus, and three weeks later the application was made 
in the following way : A piece of the bread about an inch square was 
placed in cold water and shaken until the bread was broken up and 
the spores distributed in the water. This water was then applied to 
the scaly tree by means of a sponge or cloth, or sprayed on. The 
applications were made in midsummer of 1896 and observations were 
made as to the results late in February, 1897. Four of his experiments 
resulted successfully and three unsuccessfully, while in the eighth exper- 
iment the result was doubtful on account of the tree having died 
between the times of treatment and inspection. Professor Rolfs has 
distributed cultures to entomologists in the North and West, but no 
very satisfactory field results have as yet been obtained, except perhaps 
by Professor Smith, who shows in his annual report for 1897 that while 
attempts to transmit the disease, both by tying infested t wigs received 
from Florida upon badly infested trees in New Jersey and by washing 
and spraying with diluted cultures of the fungus, were nearly all bar- 
ren of result, one series of experiments was somewhat encouraging. 
Twigs from Florida containing San Jose scales infested by the fungus 
were sent to Mr. Horace Roberts, at Fellowship, N. J., about the middle 
of dune. On September 25 Dr. Smith found the fungus upon almost 
if not quite all of the trees on which twigs had been tied. 
It. had usually spread pretty well 0V6T tin 1 tree and in some eases was obvious 
from the surface of the ground to the extremities of the branches, hundreds of 
patches of the orange fruiting processes being everywhere noticeable. 1 did not 
find any case where the disease had spread from the tree on which it was originally 
introduced, but it may have been present in another less visible stage. Bj no means 
all the scales on the trees containing the disease w en 1 dead. 
