Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 65.djvu/314

310 China is the region lying back of the city of Chifu in the north. This apple-growing industry was started many years ago by a missionary, Dr. Nevius, and has assumed very considerable proportions and covers a good deal of the province of Shantung. Below Shanghai, the orange and other subtropical fruits replace the deciduous varieties. North of Chifu native fruits only are grown, consisting of the native pear and peach, and such wild fruits as wild crab apples and an edible haw apple.

A very considerable exploration of the country lying immediately back of Shanghai was made in the course of a long house-boat trip. A

great many peach orchards were examined and a good deal of miscellaneous fruit and other plants growing about house yards were inspected. Nowhere was there any evidence of the San Jose scale, nor were scale insects of any sort much to be seen. The climate of this region is unfavorable for such insects and they are normally killed out by fungous disease. The writer afterwards proceeded by boat to Chifu—a five-day ocean trip from Shanghai, and made a considerable exploration throughout the apple orchards of this region on horseback, visiting, among others, the original orchards planted by Dr. Nevius. In all these the San Jose scale was found scatteringly present, not, however, doing any special damage, and probably not enough to be