292 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [November, 



DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. 



Edited by Prof. JOHN B, SMITH, Sc.D., New Brunswick, N. J. 



Papers for this department are solicited. They should be sent to the editor, Prof. John 

 B. Smith, Sc.D., New Brunswick, N. J. 



The Elm Leaf Beetle. At the meeting of the Economic Entomologists 

 at Springfield, Mass., several communications were read on the subject 

 of the Elm Leaf Beetle, and several notable experiences were brought 

 out, mostly as the result of work done by or under the direction of com- 

 petent entomologists. I did not have at that time the report on some 

 experiments made at West Point, N. Y., and as these are decidedly inter- 

 esting and of practical importance, it is presented here; but first a few 

 words of explanation. 



Lieutenant William Weigel, U. S. A., is in charge of the grounds at the 

 post, and it is his duty to see that everything is kept in order and in as 

 good a condition as possible. For a number of years past the elms, 

 which form the bulk of all the trees on the post, have been defoliated by 

 the beetles or their larvae, until it became a question whether it would 

 not be better to cut them down rather than to allow them to die gradu- 

 ally. Lieutenant Weigel is a graduate of Rutgers, and conceived the idea 

 tha't possibly the entomologist, whose course he did not take when at col- 

 lege, might be able to help him out of the difficulty with his elm trees. 

 He therefore called upon me late in the Winter, stated his case, and re- 

 ceived Bulletin No. 103 of the College Experiment Station, together with 

 full verbal directions on several minor points not touched upon in the 

 Bulletin, but set out in full in my Report for 1894. The insecticide rec- 

 ommended was the arsenate of lead, and his report stripped of any in- 

 troductory and concluding matter is as follows : 



" Now for my report. We have here, within the limits of the Post, 498 

 elm trees of various sizes, and perhaps made up of three or four varieties. 

 I followed your instructions implicitly, as contained in your pamphlet, 

 both as to time of spraying and mixture to be used. I used arsenate of soda 

 and acetate of lead in the proportions which you gave and also used com- 

 mon black molasses to give the proper adhesive property to the mixture. 

 My whole plant consisted of: 



" i steam fire-engine, . . . i man (engineer), to run same. 



i water-wagon (street sprinkler, 

 capacity 350 gals.). 



i team and wagon to haul mix- 

 ture and to change position 

 of plant . ... i man (teamster). 



To climb trees and use spray. . 2 men. 



Total . . . .4 men. 



