Xew York Agricultural Experiment Station. 495 



economic importance. 



Of the known species of tree crickets, this insect has received 

 most consideration in economic treatises. It has derived its reputa- 

 tion as a destructive pest from its work on raspberry and blackberry, 

 especially the former plant. The injuries it causes arise from the 

 long series of punctures which it produces in the canes during the 

 process of egg-laying. As a result of the rupturing of woody tissues, 

 the cane splits at the point of injury and becomes so weakened 

 that it eventually breaks down from the weight of the upper growth 

 or from twisting by the wind. (Plates XXXIV and XXXV.) 



This species may commonly be observed in plantings of rasp- 

 berries, and usually more or less numbers of the canes will, during 

 the fall, show the characteristic wounds by this pest. Important 

 damage occurs when there is extensive oviposition, which may 

 result in the destruction of as high as seventy-five per ct. of the 

 bearing wood. Such extreme injury is, however, rare, and in most 

 raspberry plantations the loss caused by the insects is limited to 

 the death of occasional canes. 



As previously indicated, Stewart and Eustace state that the 

 oviposition punctures by this insect may afford a lodging place for 

 the spores of Leptosphceria coniothyrium (Fckl.) Sacc. (Coniothyrium 

 Fuckelii), which is the organism responsible for the disease of rasp- 

 berries, commonly known as the raspberry cane blight. They 

 further suggest that the well-known tendency of cricket-injured 

 canes to break at the point of attack is probably due, in part, to 

 brittleness induced by the Coniothyrium and that the injury done 

 by the cricket may be much aggravated by the cane blight fungus. 



preventive and remedial measures. 

 For the protection of raspberries and blackberries chief reliance 

 should be placed on the prevention of attacks rather than in the 

 destruction of the insects after they have made their appearance 

 on the vines. Important injury may generally be averted by clean 

 culture and the destruction of weeds in and about plantings of these 

 fruits. Canes showing extensive oviposition and that are splitting 

 should be removed in the course of winter and spring pruning and 

 burned to destroy eggs contained in them. The foregoing measures 

 ordinarily afford the needed protection; but should they fail a per- 

 manent reduction in the numbers of the tree crickets could doubtless 



