THE NURSERY QUESTION. 71 
California wash — Linn -milt sulphur. 
Experiment 8 : 
November 17, ordinary strength (sulphur 25 pounds, lime 50 pounds, Bait 1* 
pounds, water to make 100 gallons); December 15, fatal to only a small per- 
centage of seales. Tree afterwards subjected to general orchard treatment. 
Experiment 9: 
December 15, double strength; fatal to very inconsiderable percentage of the 
seales. Tree afterwards subjected to general treatment of the orchard. 
THE NURSERY QUESTION. 
One of the most important and difficult questions connected with the 
appearance over a wide district in the East of the San Jose scale is the 
bearing it has on the Eastern nurseries, especially the very important 
ones in Xew Jersey in which the scale is known to have long existed 
and from which it has already been widely disseminated. The intro- 
duction of the scale into these nurseries was undoubtedly unintentional. 
and the owners were unquestionably ignorant of the amount of damage 
they were doing to Eastern fruit growers. Few people in the East 
have hitherto realized the importance of the damage which scale insects 
may work to fruits, and in view of this general ignorance the nursery- 
men in question could not have been expected to exercise much greater 
precautions than they did. Whether blamable or not, they will unques- 
tionably suffer very seriously from the widespread injury caused by the 
Eastern occurrence of this scale, and this is true not only of the nurs- 
eries directly concerned, but of others within the infested district. The 
practical question comes up here whether it is safe for purchasers to 
secure stock from any of these nurseries. The Eastern fruit grower 
now fully realizes the immense danger which the introduction of this 
insect on his premises means to him, and he will not be apt to take 
undue risks in making purchases from doubtful sources. It is also 
practically impossible for even an expert entomologist to be certain that 
the scale is entirely exterminated in an infested locality. No examina- 
tion can be so thorough as to make it impossible that not an individual 
scale has been overlooked, and the wide range of food plants makes it 
always possible for the scale to be reintroduced from near-by sources. 
If also a fertilized female be peculiarly protected by bark or by over- 
lapping scales, and survive treatment either with insecticides or fumi- 
gat ion, it is a question of only a few years before the orchard or nursery 
will be more or less completely restocked with scales. 
In the case of stock once infested, therefore, no absolute guaranty 
of freedom from this scale can be given, even by an expert, and any 
such guaranty is very apt to deceive the purchaser. The only safe 
course is to demand from the nurseryman a written certificate that the 
stock has never been infested or subject to infestation, ami further. 
that he will assume the responsibility for the subsequent damage. 
should his belief in the cleanliness of his stock prove ill founded. The 
patronage given to nurserymen should be in proportion to their evident 
