a i 
ee 
1 Junn, 1898. ] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 501 
The insect may also be carried from tree to tree or place to place on the. 
clothes of human beings who have come into contact with infested trees, 
especially during the summer months whilst occupied in gathering fruit. It 
may also, it has been stated, be spread in orchards through the agency of fallen 
or severed insect-laden boughs, carelessly left on the ground and dragged about 
with horse implements. 
These methods for the dissemination of the Pernicious Scale, though they 
are not unfrequently made capital of by those who on personal grounds protest 
against legislative restriction on the free commercial operations in which 
plants and fruit—whether diseased or nob—are concerned, are perfectly insignifi- 
cant compared with the part played in this work by infested nursery stock and 
probably fruit. 
As regards the latter agency, reference only need be made to the con- 
clusions arrived at by Mr. L. O.- Howard (United States Entomologist) 
(X., p. 97) as well his predecessor in office, the late ©. V. Riley (VI, p. 102). 
Tn the case of the former of these authorities, this verdict was arrived at after 
continuous attention had been given to questions relating to ‘the San José 
Scale for three years by the Division of Hntomology, over which he presides. 
It has, moreover, been intimated in the daily Press that the authorities in 
Germany, profiting by the past experience of other countries, have placed 
an embargo on the entry of American fruit into that country in apprehension 
of the danger threatening their own fruit-growing industry through traffic in 
such scale-infested fruit.™ 
Regarding the part played by nursery stock (but not necessarily derived 
from nurseries) in its wide distribution, testimony is everywhere unanimous. 
With reference to Australian occurences, W. W.Froggatt (Government Ento- 
mologist of New South Wales) writes during the present year—‘ That the San 
José Seale was introduced to Sydney from California by a nursery firm some 
four or five years ago upon apple or pear stoeks, there cannot be the least 
doubt, for, and in every instance where it has been discovered, the trees from 
which the infection spread have come from the same place.”  (I., p. SY /59) nia 
has (writes the Government Entomologist of Victoria) been proved beyond a 
doubt that the trees in the Wangaratta district, where the first outbreak in 
Victoria occurred, came from an old and well-known firm of Sydney 
nurseryinen.”? —C. French (J., p. 4). oar 
The same is the ease with regard to Queensland occurrences of the pest, 
with the difference that two New South Wales nurseries haye been concerned, 
from one of which—i.e., that referred to by W. W. Froggatt—there is testimony — 
forthcoming to prove that infested trees were received as early as 1894.4 And 
in every instance in which this insect has been detected in Queensland orchards 
or gardens by officers of this Department, or has been reported as occurring 
therein by correspondents, it has been found on investigation that the trees on 
which it has been at first—if not.exclusively—met with have come from one or 
other of these two sources alluded to. 
* The April number of the ‘‘ Zeitschrift fiir Phlanzenkrankheiten” (op. cit., Bd. VIII., Heft 1.), 
that has just come to hand, proves the correctness of this announcement; the prohibition (occa- 
sioned by the reeent discovery of living examples of A. pernictosus on imported American fruit) 
being alluded to in two able articles on the insect—one by Dr. C. Matzdorff (‘*Die San José-« 
Schildlaus,” pp. 1-7), the other by Prof, Dr. P. Sorauer (“Hinige Betrachtungen tiber die San 
José-Schildlaus und das Hinfuhrverbot,” pp. 46-52). os 
+ It has usually been the practice of official entomologists to honourably acquit those who 
are responsible for this dissemination in the first instance, and no doubt such act is in accord with 
justice. It is usually in their efforts to improve their own stock, and so minister to the develop- 
ment of the fruit-growing industry generally, that their own grounds have become possessed of 
the San José Scale in the first instance; they have no doubt also unknowingly distributed 
infected stock (one New South Wales nurseryman supplied three different consignments of trees 
50 conditioned to the order of this Department) in the first instance, and they may have generally 
—it is believed —taken strenuous efforts to cleanse their nurseries as soon as their condition has 
been brought to their notice. And thus they merit our full sympathy. It is, however, neverthe- 
less true that they do not ceas3 to widely distribute plants, that may be fairly presumed to be 
diseased, as long as there is a market for them, and there are no legal restrictions in a trade in this 
description of merchandise, as happens to be the case at present in New South Wales. It is 
probable, however, that nurseries whose reputation has béen established will not jeopardise it by 
sending out stock that is conspicuously infested with this insect, though it is the inconspicuously 
diseased from which the greater danger may be anticipated. ; 
