Entries from May 2009 ↓

Dr. Henry Meade Bland and some members of his English class at San Jose State Normal School, c.1913

Mother in the Garden, c. 1902
Alice Hare Collection

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Due to techinical difficulites, this image wasn’t posted in time for Mother’s Day.

Around 1870, a shipment of flowering peaches ordered by James Lick from China is believed to have introduced a devastating insect pest, later named the San Jose scale, into orchards in the Santa Clara Valley. From here, it spread to fruit-growing areas throughout the United States and Canada, and by 1895 had reached the East Coast. Since then, the pest has spread globally.

The San Jose Scale and The New Peach Scale

In the early 1880’s, an entrepreneur named John Bean purchased a ten acre almond orchard near Los Gatos. He soon discovered that the orchard was being devastated by the scale. Having earlier invented a pump that would send out a continuous spray, Bean set out to adapt that device to atomize and spray insecticides on orchard trees.  By 1884 he was satisfied with his device, and applied for a patent. The company that he established, The Bean Spray Pump Company grew over the years, eventually becoming FMC.

The San Jose scale is a sucking insect that injects a toxin into the plants it feeds upon. Once infested, a tree can die completely within two years. The insect produces anywhere from two to six generations per year. An adult female can produce as many as 30 million offspring in a year. While some commercial pesticides have been successful in controlling infestations, San Jose scale continues to be a global problem for fruit trees and for some ornamental trees and shrubs.

We’re curious: are there other plant pests or diseases out there that take their name from a U.S. city?

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Jim Reed
Curator of Library & Archives

This is one of my favorite photos in our collection. It is a family portrait taken about 1860.
Tintypes (photographs printed on tin or thin metal) are often scratched and dented, like this one, which suggests to me that they were valued keepsakes and possibly traveled in the owner’s pocket.

Sarah Puckitt, Curator