Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1905 — The Cottony Maple Scale. [ARTICLE]

The Cottony Maple Scale.

The State Board of Agriculture has the following to say regarding the oottony maple soale which is now working so extensively among the maple trees in this vicinity aud seriously threatening to exterminate all these beautiful trees.

Though commonly oalled “maple soale,” it is by no means rare upon the grape or Virginia Creeper. The technical name is "Pulvinaria Innumerabillis.” It usually attracts attention in the spring, when cottony masses become numerous in twigs rnd leaves increasing in size nntil they are one-fourth inoh or more iu diameter and a little more in leDgtb, though irregular in outline. 1 The mass seems oottony bat in reality it is a sort of wax or gum- This forms a bedding for innumerable rusty brovn eggs whioh have been laid by the female insect under the brown scale whioh seems to form the head of the mass attaohed to the twig. From these eggs minute crawling larvae hatob, muoh like the eggs in oolor and whioh separate in every direction in what seems to be a moving mass of fine dust partioles* In a day or two eaob larva inserts it’s beak into a twig or leaf and commenoes the formation of a little flattened oval mottied* soale. They remain thus, feeding and increasing in size, and as they inorease the Beales enlarge. The males oome to maturity in the latter part of the summer appearing as minute two winged flies They mate witfr the females which remain under the scale, and these before the leaves fall off, migrate to Jthe twigs or branches where they pass the winter, fastened. Feeding is resumed in the spring when the sap begins to oirculate and the egg masses begin to form, Before the cottony seoretion becomes visible, the female scale is less than one eighth inch in length very convex and mahcgany brown, On garden shrubs or plants, the scale may be removed by meoauical means. Before tae larvae fas ten themselves to the leaves 01 twigs on the maple tree, there is no diffioulty in killing them with bd emulsion or spray of soapsuds and kerosene- Dilute about three (3) quarts of kerosene with one (1) pound of whale oil soap dissolved in eight (8) gallons of water, and use as a spray or paint to the most affected parts.

The State Board of Forestry now has a man going from city to city in the State studying the insect enenres of shade trees, and this report will be available free after January Ist, 1906. Many of our metropolitan oitiea have made appropriations out of the oity treasury for the purpose of eliminating peats which were destroying shade trees. Next apring is the time to complete the destruction of the maple pests, but any branches or twigs out from the trees prior to that time abould, as a precaution, be taken cut and burned,