THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
22 
CALIFORNIA REASSURANCE . 
Words of Encouragement From Those Who Have Combatted San 
Jose Scale In its Home in this Country—Leonard Coates 
Would Allay Alarm —Scale Ran Its Course. 
Leonard Coates, the well-known nurseryman of California, 
has observed the agitation of the San Jose scale question and 
he writes thus regarding it in the California Fruit Grower: 
Our horticultural friends in the East have the scale and have it 
badly. The excitement existing at the present time transcends that 
of a Frenchman over a Boulanger or a Dreyfus. Is the twentieth 
century American becoming Gallicized ? A little more of the 
proverbial phlegm of the Teuton or of the Anglo-Saxon might not 
be a bad admixture. The university professors and the experiment 
station directors must do something to make the public believe they 
earn their living, and they cannot afford to let such an opportunity slip 
whereby their ardent zeal may be displayed. And they cannot well be 
blamed. And the nurserymen, those disinterested, public-spirited 
nurserymen, who have arisen in their wrath and indignation and de¬ 
manded, not only state, but federal legislation in the matter, and have 
probably succeeded in getting their bill passed, do they not all seek to 
impress the public that on their grounds and on their trees no San Jose 
scale is to be found, however it may be raging elsewhere ? And they, 
too, cannot be blamed. 
There is not the slightest need for this panic, for that is what it 
amounts to. In fact these occasional visitations of scale—red, white 
or black—or potato bugs or army worms, are blessings in disguise. 
The orchardist is taught that he must watch his trees closely, and see 
that they are kept clean and healthy. Such trees shall never be ser¬ 
iously harmed by scale, which, like lice in a chicken house, is often the 
sign of neglect and filth. 
The San Jose scale in California was combatted by spraying with 
various washes, which where it was not overdone, acted like the bath 
and scrub down given the chronic dyspeptic who goes to a sanitarium 
for relief. It was what was most needed. But this scale, while it 
exists in California, and probably will continue to do so, was not given 
its death blow in lime, salt and sulphur, or any other decoction, al¬ 
though these measures were useful in many cases, but by a small in¬ 
ternal parasite, Aphelinus fuscipennis, which keeps the scale in check. 
Added to this, several species of ladybirds aid greatly in retarding its 
spread. 
There is no cause for alarm, then ; season with salt the dicta of the 
professors ; look askance at the nurseryman who brags the loudest, and 
keep cool. If you spray use either the lime, sulphur and salt, or kero¬ 
sene emulsion. Get the correct formula for preparing either, and the 
right time foi applying. The experiment stations will give such infor¬ 
mation. Protest against summary proceedings, such as orders to dig 
up and burn, and if persisted in, seek redress in the courts. Do this, 
and wait for nature’s remedies, for nature, if given a free hand, will 
equalize and regulate all these things, and then—well, prepare for the 
brown, the black, and the white scale, for we have them all. 
SC ALE RAN ITS COURSE. 
J. W. Snowball, Yolo county, Cal, writes : 
I see by the exchanges that A. W. Moore of Missouri says in the 
American Agriculturist that Professor J. M. Stedman declares this dan¬ 
gerous insect pest is more destructive and more dangerous than all 
other insect or fungus diseases known. Now I do not want to contro¬ 
vert what scientific men say, or to deny the destructive properties of 
the San Jose scale, but simply for the benefit of horticulturists and 
fruit growers to say that the pest first made its appearance in California, 
its progress wms rapid and its effects were blighting on fruit trees espec¬ 
ially apple, pear, cherry, peach and plum, and it even attacked the 
maple and willow and other shrubs of the streams, but it only lasted 
about five years, in three of which it was virulent in the extreme, but, 
strange to say, it has entirely disappeared—not stamped out by rem¬ 
edies applied, but simply like the seven-j ear locust or any other plague, 
it has mysteriously dropped out of sight; whether from the attack of 
some insect or from climatic effect, or that it ran its course and died 
out, is a mystery I cannot pretend to fathom. 
WISCONSIN HORTICULTURISTS. 
At the annual meeting of the Wisconsin State Horlicultural 
Society, at Madison, February 1-4, Professor L. H. Bailey ; 
Ithaca, N. Y., delivered a stereopticon lecture. A number of 
nurserymen were present. The following officers were elected: 
President, L. G. Kellogg, Ripon ; vice-president, T. J. John¬ 
son, Baraboo ; secretary, A. J. Phillips, West Salem ; treasurer, 
R. J. Coe, Ft. Atkinson. 
President L. G. Kellogg, Ripon, was appointed by the 
governor as chairman of a horticultural commission on the 
exhibition of fruits at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition at 
Omaha. 
Secretary Philips was appointed to superintend the continued 
planting of the trial station at Wausau, central for our state 
and on the northern limits of orchard work. The plan of 
planting is continuous for several years, first of a variety with 
a full 6 ft. tree, then several root grafts of the same kind to 
remain in position as orchard trees, then a tree of hardy stock, 
largely Virginia crab, to be worked later in the limbs with the 
same variety. This continual planting for years is to test the 
plan of raising an orchard of continuous bearing without a 
skip. In the past two years we have planted 700 trees with 
marked success, other states are watching this trial orchard 
with more than usual interest. 
Janesville, Wis. George J. Kellogg. 
PROFESSOR ALWOOD’S ENDORSEMENT. 
Regarding the federal scale bill drawn and adopted at the 
convention of the American Association of Nurserymen, in St. 
Louis last June, and now before congress, Professor W. B. 
Alwood, of Virginia, says : 
This bill has run the gauntlet of much criticism, and has been made 
the subject of much discussion in committees of fruit growers, entomo¬ 
logists and before committees of congress ; and while its provisions 
may not suit entirely the views of many persons, it is thought that, 
under it, we will be able to secure, perhaps, the best possible treatment 
of this subject which can be accomplished at the present time. What¬ 
ever legislation of this sort w r e may adopt, its execution must be left 
largely to the secretary of agriculture, who will, doubtless, act through 
the trained heads of the scientific divisions of the department. The 
bill under consideration provides for exactly this sort of thing, and if 
passed by congress, we will certainly be enabled to check, in a large 
measure, the dissemination on nursery stock of such serious pests as 
the San Jose scale in interstate commerce. We trust that it may oper¬ 
ate to prevent the introduction of well known pests from some other 
countries. This measure has been indorsed, at least in principle, by 
practically every state horticultural society that has met during the 
past season. 
©bitttaiT. 
Edwin Davis, president of the Franklin Davis Nursery Com¬ 
pany, Baltimore t Md., died February 3, at his home at Hale- 
thorpe, Baltimore county, of typhoid fever and peritonitis. 
He had been sick two months. Mr. Davis was thirty-eighf 
years old and was born in Staunton, Va. His father was the 
late Franklin Davis, founder of the company. Messrs. Howard 
and Joseph Davis, brothers of the deceased, are also members 
of the company. A widow and five children survive him, as 
also does his mother, Mrs. Maria Davis, of Baltimore. A 
sister is Mrs. Maria Fulton, wife of Charles L. Fulton. Mr. 
Davis was a member of the Friends’ Meeting House. 
