SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE, MARCH 8. 
XXI 
attempt to identify it upon imported fruit by tlie unaided eye, or 
with the assistance of a hand-lens, would therefore prove futile. 
If it got into this country it was much more likely to be intro¬ 
duced through plants or trees than by the importation of fruit. 
Should it obtain a footing here there is no reason to suppose 
that it would be more injurious than the apple mussel scale, 
Aspidiotus conchiformis , which is, or ought to be, familiar to 
most apple-growers. In our climate the San Jose scale would 
probably become single-brooded, instead of, as in America, having 
up to as many as five generations in a year. 
Scientific Committee, March 8, 1898. 
Dr. M. T. Masters in the Chair, and three members present. 
Phytoptus ribis.—kn interesting letter was received from 
Miss Ormerod, giving an account of what is being done experi¬ 
mentally at the Duke of Bedford’s fruit farm at Woburn, under 
the direction of Mr. Spencer Pickering, F.B.S., as to the possi¬ 
bility of obtaining “ mite-proof ” Black Currants. The only result 
has been some plants received from Buda-Pest, which have been 
distributed to the Toddington fruit grounds, to Mr. Speir 
Newton’s farm, Glasgow, and to Woburn. Miss Ormerod has 
given as exhaustive an account as she could form of the disease 
in a special appendix to her twenty-first annual report from the 
period of its first appearance until the present time. A series of 
experiments is now being set on foot at Woburn directed to every 
point which is open for serviceable action, including chemical 
applications. These will be followed by expert examinations of 
the contents of the galled buds treated ; and with coincident 
examination of galled buds under precisely similar circumstances, 
but not treated chemically. 
Scotch Fir , Malformation. —Mr. Veitch sent a curious mass 
of stunted boughs, the whole resembling a hedgehog, and 
perhaps caused originally by a Phytoptus or Fungus. Dr. Masters 
observed that short boughs, grafted from such specimens, might 
be used as miniature trees for rockwork, &c. 
Sprouting Broccoli. —A remarkable specimen was received 
from Mr. W. P. Wright, Willesborough, Ashford, Kent, from 
the central and much enlarged stem of which a large number of 
