Poisoning Tree Scale.—We take the following from Scientific American as worth consideration by the owners of orchards and lawns:
A correspondent in Science relates the following rather startling experiment in killing tree scale by poisoning the sap of the tree. He says:
"I have in my ground a plant of Spanish broom about a dozen years old and with a trunk about four inches in diameter which has for several years been seriously infested by cottony cushion scale (Icerya purchasi). I have tried various sprays, have put scale-eating beetles on the tree, and at one time cut all the branches off and sprayed the trunk several times in the attempt to get permanently rid of this scale, but up to last winter it seemed that all attempts were in vain. In February of this year, when the broom was very thickly covered with the scale, I bored a three-eighths inch hole in the trunk to a depth of about three inches, filled the hole nearly full of crystals of potassic cyanide, and plugged it up. In two days the scale began to fall from the tree and in a few days all appeared dead. Others hatched and attacked the tree, but lasted only a short time, and the tree has since been free from scale and very vigorous."
NOTICE OF SUMMER MEETING, 1916
A JOINT SESSION OF THE MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY AND ITS AUXILIARIES, THE MINNESOTA STATE GARDEN FLOWER SOCIETY, THE MINNESOTA STATE BEE KEEPERS SOCIETY AND THE MINNESOTA STATE FLORISTS SOCIETY.
Will be held FRIDAY, JUNE 23rd, 1916, in the Gymnasium, at University Farm, St. Paul.
The Gymnasium Building in which this meeting is to be held has recently been constructed and only finished suitable for the uses of this gathering within the past year. The grounds about it are still in part in an unfinished condition. Directly south of this building are the football grounds, originally a marshy tract, now filled in and leveled off, with hillsides sloping upwards some thirty to forty feet on either side, well shaded. These slopes would be excellent places for the picnic dinner and the afternoon session except for the fact that they have recently been seeded and are not yet in condition for use. The main room in the gymnasium building, which is a very large room—at least three times as large as the one occupied by our exhibit last year—will be used for the fruit and flower display, and exhibitors can have access to this hall early in the forenoon, though visitors will be barred from the exhibition hall until 12:00 m. to give ample opportunity for placing and judging the display.