Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1904 — SMALL PARASITE DEVASTATING SHADE TREES. [ARTICLE]

SMALL PARASITE DEVASTATING SHADE TREES.

Some sort of an insect, commonly called the tree louse, has been working on many of the shade trees of Rensselaer, and especially on the maples in the court house yard, which have been covered with a white, sticky substance, resembling a mould, somewhat, for the past two months, and now the leaves are dropping off many of the trees in considerable numbers. This season has been very propitious for the pest, it is said, and its ravages in other towns is reported. Unless something is done to rid trees of this parasite it is said they will entirely kill them. It would be a grevious loss indeed to lose the few trees remaining in our court house yard, and, if not already too late, something should be done at once to save them.