MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION IQII 287 



1-4 inch in length. In the fall of 1911, however, in many local- 

 ities they entered the fourth instar and were feeding freely 

 enough upon the trees to be troublesome at apple picking and 

 to destroy the foliage to a considerable extent. This circum- 

 stance is doubtless to be accounted for by unusual weather con- 

 ditions. Whether the winter mortality will be greater for 

 those caterpillars hibernating in the more advanced stage re- 

 mains to be seen. It is encouraging to note that brown-tail 

 moth parasites imported by the federal authorities and hiber- 

 nated in ^Massachusetts are gradually spreading, some having 

 been found in this State the past year. 



Of the pests affecting grain, root, and garden crops this year, 

 wire worms, bean maggots, beet leaf miners and potato and 

 pea plant lice have been studied. 



In the spring of 191 1 a two acre plot was planted in sweet 

 corn at Highmoor Farm, Monmouth, ]\laine. Owing to the 

 great number of wire worms present, many seeds were so badly 

 eaten that they failed to germinate and therefore a very poor 

 stand was obtained. This circumstance gave an excellent 

 opportunity to experiment with poisoned grains, coating the 

 seed corn with arsenate of lead or paris green, and to try out 

 various repellents such as lime, tar, tobacco dust, etc., all of 

 which proved impractical in the control of these insects. The 

 most encouraging feature in these experiments was the succss- 

 ful growth of Canada field peas upon an infested plot. This 

 leads one to believe that a rotation involving peas, or possibly 

 peas and oats may be effectively employed, though whether 

 the wire worms are thereby actually reduced in number so that 

 they may be less injurious upon susceptible crops planted later, 

 future experiments alone will decide. Work along this line 

 is planned for next year. A fuller account of these tests is 

 published in Bulletin 195, Me. Agr. Exp. Sta. 



The gypsy moth, the brown-tail moth, the spruce bud moth, 

 the birch-leaf Bucculatrix, the larch saw fly and a native elm 

 leaf beetle have attracted most attention as pests of forest and 

 shade trees the past season. 



A native flea beetle (Haltica carinata) attacks the American 

 elm extensively in certain localities in INfaine, the injury to the 

 leaves presenting identically the appearance, of that caused by 

 the imported elm-leaf beetle so destructive in southern New 



