A New Insect Pest

New York, 1895

The San Jose Scale Threatens Destruction to Fruit Trees.

Special legislation may be required for the extermination of the San Jose scale, which has been found in nurseries on Long Island and in Columbia county. State Entomologist Lintner has been investigating the ravages of the pest for several months, and reports that unless active measures are soon taken the fruit-growers of New York will feel disastrous results.

The scale is a small insect no larger than the diameter of a common pin, and gets its name from being so well known in San Jose. It injures fruit trees in devitalizing the trees by boring through the bark with its proboscis, there being millions on a tree at one time.

The New York state experiment station at Geneva obtained an appropriation last year of $8,000 for the extermination of insect pests on the farms of the produce gardeners of Long Island, and will probably investigate the damage done by the scale in that part of the state. In case the fruit-growers neglect to interfere with the pest, as they have done thus far, the Legislature will be asked to pass a law allowing state employes free access to nurseries to spray infected trees with whaleoil soap which is fatal to the scale.

Professor Lintner will soon issue a cautionary circular on the scale to the fruit-growers of the state.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, N.Y., Jan. 18, 1895, unknown page number.