736 [Assembly 
Badly as this insect is infesting our orchards in the State of 
New-York, it is scourging our western neighbors far more severe¬ 
ly. In those districts bordering upon Lake Michigan, in parti¬ 
cular, it is at the present time making the most appalling havoc, 
surpassing anything which has hitherto been recorded of this 
species. Scarcely a tree is free from them, and unless measures 
for destroying the insect are resorted to, the tree is sure to'perish 
within a few years after it is invaded. 
George Kimball, Esq., of Kenosha, Wisconsin, gave me the fol¬ 
lowing interesting account of the introduction and spreading of 
this in-ect among his trees: “The bark-louse appears to have 
been introduced here in the year 1840 by four young sweet apple 
trees which my son brought from Cleveland, Ohio. These trees 
dwindled, their limbs had a black appearance, and the bark was 
everywhere covered with these lice, crowded upon and over¬ 
lapping each other, so that they would peel off in large scales, 
and be washed off by rains, clusters of them adhering together in 
sheets, till finally, in the year 1848, these trees died, having 
grown not more than an inch annually for the three last years. 
And the same lice had now spread upon and were covering my 
other trees more or less. All my trees became badly infested, 
the sweet ones being overrun more than the others. Some of 
them took up their abode upon my pear trees also, particularly 
upon a small tree which I happened to have, bearing hard worth¬ 
less fruit; this was covered with them as badly as some of my 
apple trees. We could find nothing in books, or in agricultural 
or horticultural papers w'hich seemed to apply to this louse, and 
hence were thrown upon our own ingenuity to combat it. Efforts 
were made in this village to organize a society, with an admission 
fee of ten dollars, to raise a fund with which to encourage expe¬ 
riments, and handsomely reward the person who discovered the 
best remedy. A secret remedy, which proved to be worthless, 
was extensively sold all over this section of country for one dol¬ 
lar to each person. Hoping that my younger and more vigorous 
trees would outlive the pest, I dug up and threw aw r ay all my old 
trees, upwards of thirty in number. I have now about one hun¬ 
dred and fifty trees, none of them over twelve years old, and 
