The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-02-09

more abundant on the new ones, where the tissues are softer and more succu- lent. They attack not only orchard trees, but also the young trees in nur- sery rows. and much of the apple stock
 in the nurseries this year is below the usual size on account of the injuries caused by this aphis. Tn one large
 nursery the tops of the trees were dipped into kerosene emulsion to kill
 the lice. and though the treatment was
 successful the species multipIies with such rapidity that trees were again soon covered. Most nurserymen declare that
 they cannot afford to do any spraying work in their nurseries, and consequent
 ly the trees are considerably dwarfed
 by the aphis. We found that spraying
 the trees with, or dipping them into
 common soap and water Gone pound in
 six gallons) would kill all plant lice with
 which the mixture came in contact.
 The apple aphis passes the winter in
 the egg stage on the twigs. and last
 winter these eggs were very abundant.
 have not observed so many this win
 ter. The eggs are oval in shape, black
 and shiny, and are glued around the
 buds.
 Plant lice were also abundant on
 plum, cherry, currant and in fact near
 ly all other kinds of plants. The pro-
 tracteds drouth in spring doubtless fa-
 vored their multiplication. And later a
 black fungus grew in the honey dew
 given off by the aphids making the trees
 look as if they had been scorched. Nat
 ,If,e~x
 aphis lions, syrphus flies and lady bee
 ties were abundant, everywhere feeding upon the plant lice.
 The pear psylla, Psylla pyricola Forst, was a scourge to the pear tree in southern Connecticut, and specimens
 were received from Various parts of the state indicating that it was also severe elsewhere. This insect, which has been mentioned several times in previous re- ports of this committee, injures the trees by sucking out the sap from the leaves and tender shoots like the plant lice to which it is closely related. It gives off honey dew and is followed by the sooty fungus in the same manner. Trees that are badly infested and not in full vigor shed many or most of their leaves during July and August. As the pear psylla is a difficult insect to com bat most fruit growers make no at | tempt to control it. We found, however, that large proportion of the nymphs and some of the adults could be killed by careful spraying, even in July,
 with soap and water Gone pound in four gallons).
 The San Jose scale-insect has in-
 creased with great rapidity during the l season, and the severity of the winter which killed the peach buds and in- jured the trees seemed to have no unu- sual effect of these insects. In fact a much larger percentage survived than ! was the case the preceding winter. Fifty-six new infested, localities have been discovered during the year. Some 1 thing like forty thousand trees in Con- necticut have been sprayed with the lime and sulphur mixtures during the past season. The results were general l ly satisfactory. To go into details here regarding the treatment against this in- sect would be to anticipate the subject which our secretary has given place l on the programme of this meeting.
 It has not as yet been possible to ob-