FORTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT. 131 



waut to cut down your elm trees but it explains why the wodley louse 

 sometimes appears when you use perfectly clean stock and set it at 

 a distance from any other orchard. I do not know how to control the 

 wooley-louse. 



Question : Tell us about the onion maggot. 



Answer: The latest news about the onion maggot is from AVisconsin. 

 Professor Sanders, State Entomologist of Wisconsin, tells me that they 

 succeeded fairly Avell with poisoned syrup. He placed small basins con- 

 taining a poisoned syrup about the fields using from twelve to twenty 

 of them to an acre, keeping them in operation from the time when the 

 onions come up for several weeks. The syrup is made as follows: Five 

 grams of arsenate of soda to a gallon of hot water; to this is added a 

 half-pint of molasses. The object is to attract and poison the adult 

 flies before they lay their eggs. If you do this you should place a wire 

 screen over the basins to keep the bees out. I believe a quarter-inch 

 mesh wire screen would be about right. 



Question: I noticed cherries in ray orchard that had a little speck 

 on the outside and when I opened them up there was a worm inside. 

 What is it? 



Answer: You did not detect the worm until you ate it? 



Member: That is it. 



Answer (continued) : You saw first a little speck — then the worm? 

 That looks like one of the cherry fruit-flies. 



Question: Will spraying right after blossoming control it? 



Answer: We are recommending the use of a spray put on the lower 

 part of the tree not covering the tree at all but merely the lower 

 branches, the spray to contain a syrup or molasses to catch the adult 

 flies before they lay their eggs, and just after the cherries set. 



Question : How about the bees ? 



Answer: As yet there has been no complaint. Slingerland and 

 Crosby recommend it either with or without syrup, and they claim it 

 has worked all right in New York. We haven't tried it yet. As to 

 the bees I do not know. We shall have to wait and see. Of course 

 this spray will come at a time when apple is in "bloom and I do not 

 think that bees will bother with the syrup while the apple-blossom 

 flower is on. 



A Member : Down at South Haven there was a rush for nicotine witli 

 wiiich to spray for the aphis. The weather turned suddenly warm, and 

 the aphis all disappeared. A careful inspection of that orchard show- 

 ed that there were carcasses of the aphis present. 



Answer: You probably found the cast-skins of tlie aphis. There are 

 three species of the aphis on apples that come out almost together. One 

 of them leaves the apple and migrates to grass for the summer. If you 

 were sure just which species you had I could tell you more about it. 

 If the spring opens warm, you can afford to take more chances than if 

 it is wet and backward. 



Question : Does the nicotine injure the parasite that works on the 

 aphis? In my own experience it seems as though I would kill all of 

 them and then in a week they would all appear again. 



