LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, Washington, D. C., February 20, 1898. SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith manuscript of a bulletin which gives an account of the spread of the San Jose scale in the United States during the last two years and of the work which has been done by economic entomologists in the effort to subdue it. I recommend that it be published as Bulletin No. 12, new series, of this division. Respectfully, Hon. JAMES WILSON, Secretary of Agriculture. L. O. HOWARD, THE SAN JOSE SCALE IN 1896-1897. INTRODUCTION. · Bulletin No. 3, New Series, of this Division, entitled, "The San Jose Scale: Its Occurrences in the United States, with a full account of Its Life History and the Remedies to be Used Against It," was published in January, 1896, and contains a reasonably full history of the eastern occurrences of this insect down to the close of November, 1895. The demand for this bulletin has been so great that the first edition has been exhausted and a new one has just been printed. Inasmuch as the information contained in the bulletin is authoritative and complete down to the close of the year 1895, it has not been deemed necessary to publish a revised edition. The statements which it contains regarding life history and other important topics have stood the test of two years' scrutiny, and all that seems necessary is the bringing together of additional information which has resulted from two years' work on the part of a majority of the official economic entomologists of the country. Never in the history of economic entomology in the United States has a single species of insect excited so much interest as has the San Jose scale; and in view of the fact that it has aroused the whole fruit-growing population of the country to a sense of the value of entomological investigations, that it has brought about legislation against injurious insects in a number of States, and has almost alone been responsible for an appeal for national legislation, participated in not only by the horticulturists of the country but by dealers in nursery stock, it may be said that its eastern advent has been far from an unmixed evil. Many individuals will have suffered, but the sum total of resulting good to the fruitgrowing interests will eventually have placed the balance on the right side. The years 1896 and 1897 have been very active ones on the part of State authorities; so much so that further investigation by the National Department as to spread, exact localities, and many other points has been unnecessary, and it is the purpose of this bulletin simply to bring together under convenient heads the results of the general work of the two seasons. DISTRIBUTION AND PRESENT CONDITION. In the light of what we now know, our actual knowledge of the distribution of the San Jose scale in the East in the fall of 1895 was com |