st comes from the feeding of the
beetles and the work of the larvae, although the latter is not as bad
in the apple as in the stone fruits. A poison on the young foliage as
soon as the beetles begin to feed is the best method of combating
curculio. Jarring the tree is not as practicable with the apple as it
is with the plum.

6. THE SAN JOSE SCALE, one of our worst apple tree pests, is a sucking
insect extracting the juices of the tree from the trunk, limbs or
branches, or even from the leaves and fruit when it is very abundant.
At first the growth is checked only, but as the insects develop their
work finally results in the death of the part, unless they are
destroyed. The insect winters in an immature condition on the bark
under a grayish, circular, somewhat convex scale about the size of a
pinhead. The young, of which a great many broods are produced, are
soft bodied but soon form a scale. In the early spring small
two-winged insects issue from these scales.

After mating the males die, but the females continue to grow and in
about a month begin the production of living young--minute, yellow,
oval creatures. These young settle on the bark and push their slender
beaks into the plant from which they begin to suck out the sap. In
about twelve days the insects molt and in eight to ten more they
change to pupae, and in from thirty-three to forty days are themselves
bearing young. A single female may give birth to four hundred young in
one season and there are several generations in a season. This great
prolificacy is what makes the scale so serious a pest.

In fighting it every scale must be destroyed or thousands more are
soon born. In order to be able to use a strong enough mixture of lime
and sulphur to destroy them by smothering or choking the spray must be
applied on the dormant wood in the spring or fall or both.
Thoroughness is most essential.

7. THE OYSTER SHELL SCALE, although it is essentially the same in its
habits and in its methods of sucking the sap from the tree is not as
bad a pest as the San Jose scale because it is less prolific, there
being but one brood a year. Still this scale often destroys a branch
and sometimes a whole tree. The "lice" winter as eggs under the scale
and hatch in late May or early June. After crawling about the bark for
two or three days, the young fix their beaks into it and remain
fastened there for life, sucking out the sap. By the end of the season
they have matured and se