178 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 



2-3 EDWARD VII., A. 1903 



Tlie importance of the Pea Crop both to the farmer for feeding, and for the excel- 

 lent condition the land is afterwards left in for the cultivation of other crops, as well as 

 to the merchant for export, makes it most advisable that everything possible should be 

 done to preserve the trade in this important cereal. At the present time there is a most 

 decided inclination on the part of farmers to give up growing peas on account of the 

 difficulty of securing a crop free of the weevil. In many districts where formerly large 

 and very remunerative crops were grown, hardly any are now sown, and the decrease in 

 the acreage sown to peas in Ontario in 1902, as given in the Crop Bulletin for August 

 last, of the Ontai'io Bureau of Industries, is 70,000 acres less than in 1901. It is pos- 

 sible that this diminution in the number of peas sown may to a certain degree affect 

 beneficially the amount of occurrence of the Weevil next year, but this alone cannot 

 possibly solve the question at issue, i.e., such a wholesale destruction of the Pea Weevil, 

 that the whole of the province of Ontario may again become what it certainly was in 

 the past, the best country in the world for the production of peas of the highest quality 

 on the market. This end, I am confident, is well within the bounds of reasonable possi- 

 bility, but will depend upon a much wider application than has ever been practised in 

 the past, of concerted measures, which must be adopted simultaneously wherever peas 

 are grown, both in Canada and the United States. 



I have carried on during the past season a very extensive correspondence with the 

 leading grain merchants, seedsmen, farmers, and other pea growers in the proWnce of 

 Ontario as well as in Montreal, from which port the greater part of the crop for export 

 is shipped. From this correspondence I have been able to learn, I believe, pretty 

 thoroughly what the condition of affairs, with regard to the destruction of the pea crop 

 by the Pea Weevil, is at the present time. This article is written as a special effort to 

 induce everybody concerned, to do something now, more definitely and in a more con- 

 certed manner than has ever been done before. An agitation has already been created 

 through the efforts of this Division working conjointly with the Provincial Department 

 of Agriculture through Prof. Lochhead, of the Ontario Agricultural College at Guelph. 

 An important confei^ence was held at the annual meeting of the Entomological Society 

 of Ontario, when a resolution was passed requesting the Superintendent of Fai-mers' 

 Institutes for Ontario to allow this matter to be brought prominently before every farmers' 

 institute meeting in the province during the coming winter. Mr. G. C. Ci-eelman, the 

 energetic Superintendent of Farmers' Institutes for Ontario, very soon afterwards sent 

 out to all institute workers a circular letter in which is plainly shown the great interest 

 taken in this matter by the Provincial Minister of Agriculture. In this circular, all who 

 are going to address institute meetings this winter were instructed to attend the annual 

 meeting of the Exjierimental Union and Provincial Winter Fair at Guelph, and it is 

 stated to be the wish of the Minister that, * all institute workers should this year be pre- 

 pared to discuss the Pea Weevil. To this end arrangements have been made, whereby 

 special instruction will be given on this subject at the Experimental Union and Winter 

 Fair. Prof. Lochhead, of Guelph, and Dr. Fletcher, of Ottawa, will discuss the matter. I 

 would be pleased therefore, if you would keep yourself informed as much as possible along 

 this line.' The matter came up for consideration at both of these important meetings and 

 was discussed with earnestness, not only by the institute workers, most of whom were in 

 attendance, but by several other farmers who were present. Full accounts of both 

 the London and Guelph conferences appeared in the Toronto Weekly Sun, the Montreal 

 Weekly Star and the Farmer's Advocate. These articles were widely copied in the public 

 press, and a special bulletin has been prepared by Profs. Lochhead and Zavitz, which 

 will appear before seeding time next spring. Timely articles will be issued next season 

 telling pea-growers what to do, and advising them as to all details of the proposed cam- 

 paign against this enemy. 



Among those who have taken an active part in the discussion of the best means of 

 remedying the existing injury to the pea crop by the weevil, the following have assisted 

 by giving valuable suggestions and information as to the range and extent of the depre- 

 dations, and by sending samples of peas, which have been fumigated at various dates to 

 destroy the weevils : — 



