216 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



can be consulted to advantage. I mention these works spe- 

 cially because the literature on this subject in this country is 

 not well enough known to those interested. 



In resisting the attacks of injurious insects, much might 

 undoubtedly be done by intelligent legislation. Allow me to 

 quote Dr. Packard on this point. He says : "As illustrated 

 so well by the history of the incursions of the army-worm 

 and canker-worm, it is only by a combination between farmers 

 and orchardists that these and other pests can be kept under. 

 The matter can be best reached by legislation. We have fish 

 and game laws, why should we not have an insect law. Why 

 should we not frame a law providing that farmers, and all 

 owning a garden or orchard, should co-operate in taking pre- 

 ventative measures against injurious insects, such as the early 

 or late planting of cereals, to avert the attacks of the wheat 

 midge and Hessian fly; the burning of stubble in the autumn 

 and spring, to destroy the joint-worm ; the combined use of 

 proper remedies against the canker-worm, the various cut- 

 worms, and other noxious caterpillers ? " We have already 

 some laws protecting small birds, but they need to be more 

 stringent and better enforced. Legislation on the subject can 

 scarcely be expected and would be perhaps of little use, until 

 the necessity for it is better appreciated than it is at present. 

 Having alluded to the usefulness of a knowledge of entomol- 

 ogy, and, in a general way, to its relation to agriculture, I 

 wish, in the time which is left us, to call special attention to 

 three or four injurious insects which have recently appeared 

 and are likely to do much damage, so that their habits may 

 be observed the coming summer, and also that any gentleman 

 present, who have already encountered them, may give us the 

 results of their observations. 



The first of these is the corn weevil (^Sphenoj^liorus Zece 

 Walsh') which attacks the stalks of young corn in June. It 

 is a slender, subcylindrical, blackish beetle about three-eighths 

 of an inch long, excluding the slender snout, or beak, which 

 is nearly a third as long. The beak is black, curved down- 

 ward, not .bigger round than the basal part of the legs, and 

 has at its base a pair of slender antennge which are black. 



