RAVAGES OF INSECTS ON FOREST AND FRUIT 
TREES—REMEDY. 
The trees in the parks and gardens of this city having been seriously 
affected*by insects, we sent to Dr. Fitch some of the limbs affected; and 
the annexed answer gives the remedy for these depredators. J. 
June 27, 1860. 
Hon. B. P. Johnson : 
Dear Sir — The “depredator upon the trees in Albany—very extensive”— 
of which you send me specimens — is a species of scale insect. The oval 
brown scale is the dried remains of the body of the female, which, adhe¬ 
ring to the bark, covers and protects her eggs during the winter. When 
the warmth of the advancing season is about hatching the eggs, a white 
cotton-like substance begins to grow among them underneath the scale and 
protrude from one of its ends, elevating it from the bark—this cotton 
serving to protect the tender young insects till they become sufficiently 
robust to endure a full exposure to the atmosphere. The newly hatched 
insects resemble exceedingly minute lice. Each of these little masses of 
white cotton which are adhering along the undersides (as I suppose) of the 
limbs, may now be seen, by the aid of a magnifying glass, to be thronged 
with these lice, or with eggs not yet hatched. After a while, the lice will 
forsake this covering and disperse themselves over the bark—particularly 
the smooth tender bark of the small limbs and twigs — nourishing them¬ 
selves by puncturing it and sucking the sap therefrom. 
All kinds of these scale insects are most pernicious to the trees or other 
vegetation on which they occur. The apple treo bark louse—the minute 
oyster shaped scale, so common on our apple trees — is the species with 
which we have had the most experience; and it is altogether probable that 
any remedy which is effectual for it, will be equally efficacious for all other 
scale insects, including this now un the Albany trees. In the Memoirs of 
the old Board of Agriculture of our State, vol. iii, pages 535-539, is copied 
from the Memoirs of the Caledonia Horticultural Society, an article by 
Sir G. S. Mackenzie, on anointing the bark of trees with oil, to destroy 
insects thereon, alluding particularly to the apple tree bark louse. And 
in Illinois and Wisconsin, where of late years this insect has been unpre¬ 
cedentedly fatal to their orchards, and where every remedy which could be 
thought of has been tried, with but indifferent if any success, it is now 
reported that smearing the bark with oil — the same measure so long ago 
