Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-09-08
SEPTEMBER 8, 1853
The orange Business Redivivus.

The Orange Business Redivivus.
The HERALD has paid great deal of
attention to the agencies which are at
work for the extinction of the scale-bug
for the reason that we recognize that the
area of country in which the orange can
be grown with profit commercially is
very limited, in the United States, and
that most of that restricted area is in
Southern California. The orange appeals
20 powerfully to the human palate that
it will always command ready sale, q
fact which is attested in a most con-
spicuous manner by the circumstance
that from three ports Il Italy alone the
average expectation Of oranges, during a
period of ten years, has averaged twenty
millions of dollars annually. The
restricted section of country in Southern
California adapted to the cultivation of
this most popular of the citrus fruits will
itself very shortly produce, and sell,
yearly, that amount of oranges, on the
understanding that the conditions of
their cultivation shall remain in the
future what they have been in the past,
barring the last two years.
Interested in the perpetuity of our
orange growers, this journal has paid
special attention to everything that indi-
Gates that the time is approaching when
the scale bug shall be an ugly reminis-
cence of the past. As to the white scale,
the facts are indisputable that it has
been already extirpated through the
Offices of the Australian lady bug, or the
Vedolia Cardinals, to employ it's scien-
tific name.
The facts which establish the extinc-
ton of the white scale are beyond dis
pute, and they are absolutely overwhelm-
ing as well as specially interesting. But
We will pass them for the moment.
Some time ago the HERALD contained
q statement that a parasite had been de-
>~eloped at the Sierra Madre Villa, and
other points on the foothills of the San
Gabriel valley, which was slowly but
surely exterminating the red scale,
which latter insect. be it borne in mind,
is entirely different from the white scale.
1t is the red scale which has made havoc
of the orchards around Santa Ana and
Orange, in Orange county, and which has
been obtrusive in the San Gabriel valley
notably 80 in the Baldwin orange groves.
This same insect has been industrious
and destructive in the orange trees
around Marysville, in Northern Cali
fornis. Reading the article in the
HERALD describing the parasite which is
the enemy of the red scale, Mr.. Lawson,
the editor of the Marysville appeal, wrote
to Mr.. A. F. Kercheval, of this city, one
of the Horticultural Commissioners, ask.
ing for information concerning the para
site. On receipt of this letter Mr.. Ker-
cheval, Mr.. Craw, Professor Coquillet,
and others, equipped with technical and
scientific information, repaired to the
San Gabriel foothills and investigated
the matter. AS result, they found a
destructive insect was unquestionably
developing amongst the individuals Of
the red scale variety; and that, in every
case where it was developed, the death
of the red scale bug followed. That is,
the single parasite killed the single scale.
Whether these insects or their larvae can
be developed in q shape to ship abroad
these learned and technical gentlemen
are not able as yet to say. The story we
merely tell as it is told to us.
The one thing upon which the Messrs.
Kercheval, Craw, Coquillet. and the
whole learned crowd, agree, is that the
Australian lady.bug, or Vedolia Cardi-
nails, has already practically extirpsted
the white scale. This pest is as surely q
thing of the past as the chinch and po-
tato bugs, the locusts and grasshoppers,
of the great northwest, of dozen years
ago. In city and in country, their knell
has been rung; and already, in all
places where the Vedolia has been intro
duced the white scale is already tradi-
ton of the past. The joyous significance
of this fact in orange culture in Los An
geles county can scarcely be realized.
We say this deliberately, because it is
now q well established fact that two
yOeAy A0oAAOuc oPAoyp ALI UIo Aou SCSAo,
taking no account of the special parasite
which has taken the contract to dispose
of this red.hooded if not red-handed in
sect monster. The red scale, as the ex-
perience of our most intelligent orchard
lists has proven, can be exterminated at
an outlay Of labor and expense less than
is involved in eultivating an acre of corn,
taking acre for acre Of orange grove.
It is impossible to overestimate the
glsd significance Of these facts in the
splendid, and never really arrested, de-
velopment of Southern California. They
mean that, with little labor and care,
and little waiting, the horticulturist of
Los Angeles county may be sure Of an
income ranging yearly from $3.50 to
$1,000 an acre, according to the maturity
of his orchard. They mean that the