Iron County register., 1898-03-10
SAN JOSE SCALE.

About the Pest-It First Appeared In
California. and Has Done Many Million
Dollars Damage to Fruit Trees. and Is
Increasing RaDidly-How to KIN 1t.
COLUMBIA, Mo-. March 5.-The an
thorities of the Missouri state expert
ment station have issued the following
statement regarding the San Jose scale
which has recently done such vast dam
age to American orchards, the loss from
this source in California alone being es-
stimated at 81, 600, 600.
In 1873 the San Jose scale was dis
covered on fruit trees in San Jose, Cal
From this locality it spread rapidly,
until in Il years it had infested every
fruit growing region IN the state, and
had reached Oregon and Washington or
chards. It at once became known as
the worst insect pest of the orchards,
and is to-day capable of causing more
damage to the fruit interests of the
United States, or perhaps of the world.
than any other known insect. The
infested trees are either killed in tive
or three years or rendered worthless.
Several million dollars damage has
already been accomplished by this pest
in California, and it now threatens tC
be even more destructive in the east.
The scale is not readily detected by the
casual observer, and consequently often
remains unnoticed until the death o1
the tree calls attention to it. Unfortu-
nately it multiplies rapidly. Each
adult female continues to give birth tc
living young for six weeks, and there
are several, probably four, generations
each year. It infests the stems, twigs,
leaves and fruit of nearly lll fruit trees
and bushes and is extremely difficult to
kill.
These statements are not made to
cause unnecessary alarm, but merely
to call attention to the facts, in order
that the proper precaution my be TAX
en- to prevent the introduction of this
pest into new territories, and that
every effort may be made to detect and
exterminate it in the regions now in
tested Missouri has been publicly
charged in several eastern experiment
station bulletins and by the United
States department OF agriculture as
having introduced the San Jose scale in
New Jersey. from which locality it has
spread to Virginia, West Virginia.
Maryland, Delaware, New York. Penn
sylyania, Massachusetts,, Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina,
South Carolina. Mississippi. Texas,
Michigan, Missouri, Georgia. Florida,
Alabama. Louisiana, and is found in
New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, Ida
no, British Columbia. Ontario in Cana
da. and of course, in California.
From Investigations conducted by
this station. it is evident that Missouri
is not responsible for this introduction.
since none OF the stock from California
have been was planted in Missouri-it
simply passed through one of our
nurseries, acting as agent, and by or
der of a California firm The respon-
sibilitv. therefore. rests with Cali
fornia and not with Missouri. For the
last two years the Missouri experiment
station has been conducting expert
ments with the San Jose scale, and the
results, briefly summarized, are as fol-
lows:
l. The San Jose scale has been found
infesting 20 private orchards in Mis-
souri,, some of which are already COM
pletely ruined, while others have only
part of the trees beyond recovery, pro-
vided they be attended to at once.
?. Thirty suspected private orchards
have not yet been inspected, and it IS
probable that some of these will be
found to be infested, thus swelling the
number of infested orchards beyond the
90 now known.
g. The scale has not been found in
Testing any nurseries within this state,
two nurseries have infested
orchards within one-haf mile.
4. In every known case the infection
was introduced Enconsciously on nurs-
cry stock from one or the other of two
New Jersey nurseries, with one excep-
ton, and that came from Pennsylvania
s. While in most cases the scale was
from four to seven years
ago. one infection was introduced but
two years ago
g. The San Jose scale is distributed
scions, buds, etc, and is naturally
spread from tree to tree by birds al
insects.
:. In some localities in Missouri, not
only orchard fruit trees, but shade and
ornamental trees, Usage orange hedges
and some forest trees are now infest-
ed, as a result of the natural distribu-
ton of the inset from the infested
orchards.
8. The San Jose scale can best be
killed in orchards by the use of whale
oil soap. The tree should at first be
severely pruned, and then thoroughly
washed or sprayed on all sides with two
pounds of whale-oil soap dissolved in
one gallon of hot water. At least two
are necessary, and three
are preferable. The first application
should be made shortly after the leaves
have fallen. the second during the win
ter. and the third in the spring, before
the buds swell. If only two applica-
tions can be made. the first and third
are to be used, namely, the fall and
spring applications. Hydrocyanic
acid Is practically the only
other sac remedy, bat this is more
AMI expensive than the
soap method. except for nurs-
ery stock. Spray pumps to be used for
thc application of hot whale-oil soap
should have metal valves The soap
saculd be used only during the dormant
S-sffa of the tree -