50 
FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 
It is proper to add that, in all the above experiments that were tried in June, there 
was no rain for at least 6 days afterwards ; and that in the November experiment there 
was no rain for several weeks afterwards. So that the various articles applied had a 
sufficient time for operating, before the rain washed them off. 
Statement 4th.— In April,. 1866,1 had an apple-tree, the lower limbs of which were 
infested, some of them pretty badly, by the Oyster-shell Bark-louse. I pruned them all 
quite closelv, removing all wood under % inch in diameter, and then with a common 
painter’s “ sash-brush ” painted them all over as thinly as possible with kerosene. Not 
many weeks afterwards I examined scores of the scales on these limbs, and found the 
eo-o-s under all of them dead and dried up ; and not a single Bark-louse, so far as I could 
discover, subsequently hatched out on them. Out of the whole number of limbs, but a 
single one died, and that was so completely covered with scales, that it would probably 
have died anyhow. The remainder put out fresh shoots, and are now alive and healthy. 
The tree was about 6 or 7 inches in diameter at the butt, and probably about one-tentli 
part of it was operated upon in this manner. In several other trees that I treated on 
the same system, the results were similar, it being uniformly only such branches as 
were completely coated over with scales, that subsequently perished. 
Dr. Mygatt in 1854 gives the following testimony : “ Lard was used on three bearing 
trees soon after the eggs hatched out; every insect touched with the lard perished ; 
the limbs are now clear, except the spots missed. The trees grew finely, with no 
apparent injury to them. * * * I applied lard to several bearing trees in 
August; those scales are all dry and apparently dead, and no insects to be seen. 
* * * One tree, thickly covered with the white variety,” [Harris’s Bark-louse ; 
see chap. 9] “ was oiled over from the ground to the minutest branch, this was done in 
April; not an egg hatched. The new growth was luxuriant; and the tree is now clear 
of lice, and does not appear to be injured by the oil.” —( Transactions Illinois State Agri¬ 
cultural Society , I. p. 516.) • 
In 1856, Dr. Fitch writes as follows : “Now at last it is pretty well ascertained, that 
anointing the trees with grease or oil is an effectual remedy [against the Oyster-shell- 
Bark-louse.] I am assured of this by Dr. Hoy, of Racine, Wisconsin, and other corres¬ 
pondents, and by several communications in the Prairie Farmer, and other agricultural 
periodicals.” {New York Reports , II. § 15.) 
Mr. Sherman, of Waukegan, Lake Co., Illinois, is reported in 1861 as using a mixture 
of equal quantities of linseed oil and tar, to destroy the Bark-louse in the perfect scale 
state. “ These articles,” it is stated/ * 1 are mixed over the fire by a gentle heat to dis- 
applied in his neighborhood to the matured scale, under the erroneous idea that it destroys the eggs. 
He has been kind enough to send me (February 29th) an infested twig soaped in this manner, and 
another twig cut off the very same limb which had not been soaped at all. On lifting and examining 
under the lens 100 scales upon each of these twigs, I found that on the soaped twig there were 31 scales 
containing plump, healthy eggs, and 69 scales, mostly gutted by the Mites, which contained no such 
eggs; while on the unsoaped twigs the numbers were respectively 30 and 70; showing that, where the 
soap had been applied, the number of healthy normal scales was actually one per cent, greater than 
where nature was left to her own devices. In this case the soap had been applied only 12 days before 
I lifted the scales; but in a specimen sent at the same time, tn which the soap had been applied for con¬ 
siderably more than a month, there was a still larger proportion of healthy normal scales, namely 37% 
per cent, instead of 31 per cent. Hence, it may be inferred that even pure undiluted soft soap produces 
no effect upon the matured scale; although, as Dr. Mygatt informs me/ it kills all the foliage, fruit or 
young growth that it touches.” 
