The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-07-31
HAVEN JULY M o

ed. Close observation, In this city ant it's suburbs, and along the country
 roads, will show that good many ma
 pie trees are in pretty bad way. Nc
 less than GA different species of insects that attack maple trees are enumerated by entomologists.
 The cottony maple leaf scale is 6 little pest that has been more or less
 abundant in Connecticut for the past 40 years. All varieties of naples are attacked by it, but the soft or silver
 maple is its preferred food plant, Al times it also attacks other trees and
 shrubs, as the oak linden, elm, syca-
 more, locust, beech, willow, osage, or ange, hackberry wild grape, elder
 sumach, rose and currant. The male
 of this insect lives but a few days, but the females remain upon the under side of the leaves until nearly time for
 them to fall in autumn Then they mi
 grate to the twigs, attacking them
 selves by inserting their beaks into the bark. There they remain until the fol- | lowing season. the eggs gradually de-
 veloping, and being deposited mainly 1 in June and July. Within this period
 the insect is most likely to be noticed, l on account of it's comparatively large size and especially from the conspicu-
 ous white cushion at the end of it's | body After depositing from 1000 to l 1000 small, white spherical eggs. the | female dies, her body shrivels up, but remains, often for a year or more, at tached to the twig of the cottony mass. This scale, which is a species | imported from Europe, is rapidly gain ing in importance and has, during the past two or three seasons, seriously inn paired the vitality of many maple trees in Connecticut. The so-called gloomy scale," possibly not as com mon here, has long been on the increase in Washington D. C., and every year it kills large branches, and even entire trees of the silver naples, which are so extensively grown along the streets of that city.
 The injury caused by the scale in- sects is due to their sucking the sap from leaves and twigs. This they continue to do as long as the sap flows, after which they become torpid and so remain until spring. With millions of these infinitesimally small but nev- er-resting pumps draining away their life, no wonder the naples lose their health and beauty.
 For the class of insects to which these scales belong, spraying with poisons In solution is entirely useless Only biting, eating insects can be reached by poisons. But there are a number of applications fatal to the scale, yet harmless to the user. These are, a so- lution of whale oil soap, a i per cent solution of carbolic acid, or kerosene emulsion. Many of the pests may be cleared from the trees by vigorous and repeated drenchngs with clear wa ter thrown from a hose. A number of parasitic and predacious insects prey upon these scales, and prevent their otherwise overwhelming increase.
 Maple trees are frequently infested by borers that cut tunnels spirally up- ward around the trunks, sometimes girdling and killing the trees. Many species of borers do not cut into living wood, but tunnel just under the bark where the wood is dead, causing the bark to come off in large sheets. When the mischief is done the worms may be followed up to their lairs and de- stroyed by knife or wire.
 The true way to save our shade trees from the yearly increasing insect hordes that threaten to accomplish their ultimate destruction, is to save and protect insectivorous birds.-Hart- ford Times.