FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
103 
PEACH AND PEAR GROWING MENACED. 
We fear the peach and pear growers 
over large districts of the State are facing 
conditions hardly less serious than the 
citrus growers in white fly districts. The 
last Annual Report of the Experiment 
Station states that San Jose scale has 
been received from thirteen different 
counties of the State, some of the coun¬ 
ties having more than one case of infes¬ 
tation. More new cases have come to 
our notice during the past six months 
than in any equal period of the Station's 
previous history, and it seems there can 
be but little doubt that the entire peach¬ 
growing section is honey-combed with 
it. Any notion that San Jose scale, left 
to itself, will not kill about nine out of 
every ten orchards that it finds in Flor¬ 
ida may as well be abandoned. Those 
of you with whom it has taken up quar¬ 
ters, and who contemplate letting it take 
its own course, should make your bank 
accounts last as long as you can, because 
you are not apt to have others soon 
again, unless you have other sources of 
revenue than your own peach crops. 
Those who feel disposed to fight it 
procure a good kero-water sprayer, 
and use a twenty-five per cent, 
mixture of crude petroleum, specific 
gravity of 43 degrees to 45 degrees for 
winter treatment, and a fifteen per cent, 
mixture of kerosene and water, or some 
good whale oil soap compound, such as 
that of Leggett Bros., for summer treat¬ 
ment. 
The value of crude petroleum and the 
limits of its usefulness as an insecticide 
are now fairly well known, and its super¬ 
iority over kerosene as a scale destroyer, 
during the winter months, upon decid¬ 
uous trees, is generally conceded. The 
same precautions that are observed in 
using kerosene should be observed with 
petroleum, at least until wider knowl¬ 
edge enables us to say whether any of 
them may be modified or omitted. 
The distribution of the scale has been 
chiefly due to careless nursery ship¬ 
ments, a good deal or all of which could 
have been avoided by careful fumigation 
of the stock before shipment. I have 
pretty good evidence that there are nur¬ 
series in Florida, upon whose grounds 
the Entomologist has never been, that 
now are or recently were infested with 
the scale and were distributing it. The 
proprietors may have discovered their 
conditions themselves, for anything we 
know to the contrary, and may be using 
proper measures to insure the safety of 
their stock. On the other hand, they 
may be selling scaly trees by the carload 
without hindrance from anybody. 
Contrary to general belief, San Jose 
scale will attack the trifoliate orange, and 
this variety of citrus stock should always 
be fumigated before shipment from any 
suspicious quarter. 
Parasites are beginning to attack the 
scale in all quarters of the country. 
Some of our lady-bugs seem to be ac¬ 
quiring a taste for it, and we believe that 
in ten years from now it may not be 
worse than many of our other scales, but 
until that time it is our belief that it must 
be fought with energy. 
OTHER PEACH AND PEAR INSECTS. 
The West Indian or Jamaica scale, 
Diaspis amygdali, is said to be decreas¬ 
ing some in West Florida, owing to an 
onslaught of lady-bugs. This insect is 
also established at Nesbitt, Duval Coun¬ 
ty. We believe it to be almost, if not 
