ISO EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 



2-3 EDWARD VII., A. 1933 



Jose Scale, -without the slightest injury to the trees. These soaps are much more ex- 

 pensive than the kerosene emulsion, and very much less troublesome to dissolve and apply 

 than the lime and sulphur washes. For this reason they may be preferable for those 

 fruit-growei'S who have a small number of fruit trees. They are useful against many 

 other insects than the San Jose Scale, particularly the various kinds of other scale insects, 

 the Pear Psylla, and some other insects which pass the winter beneath the flakes of the 

 bark of- fruit trees. The best time to spray trees is just before the buds burst in spring. 

 The soap should be dissolved in hot water and applied as hot as is conveniently possible. 



3. Fumigation.^A very effective remedy for small trees, but one requiring the use 

 of very poisonous chemicals and somewhat expensive apparatus, is fumigation with 

 hydrocyanic acid gas ; hence, in view of the success which has been secured by the careful 

 use of kerosene emulsion, I do not consider this a practical remedy for orchard use. 



In addition to the above described work which has been done by the Provincial 

 Government of Ontario towards finding a perfect remedy for the San Jose Scale, the 

 greatest care has been taken by the Provincial Department of Agriculture that no 

 nursery stock of any kind should be sent out by nurserymen which had not been 

 thoroughly fumigated under government inspection. The Federal fumigation stations 

 located at St. John, K.B., St. John's, Que., Niagara Falls and Windsor, Ont., Winnipeg, 

 Man., and Vancouver, B.C., through which ports, only, nursery stock is allowed to be 

 imported into Canada, have been in active service, and a great deal of nursery stock has 

 been brought into the country. have again this year the greatest satisfaction in 



reporting that there has been no complaint from importers as to the slight delay which 

 must occur, nor as to any injury to trees during the necessary unpacking and handling 

 for treatment. The superintendents at all the stations have done their work cai-efully 

 and intelligently, and no single instance has been brought to my notice of living scales 

 being detected on trees after passing through the fumigating houses, or of injury to them 

 by the gas. 



- TWO NEW STRAWBERRY PESTS. 



During the past summer complaints were received from British Columbia of the 

 presence in injurious numbers of two different kinds of caterpillars, which have not, I 

 believe, been previously reported as doing harm to cultivated strawberries in Canada. 

 Specimens of the larvae of both species were received from Mrs. C. E. Hickey, of French 

 Creek, B.C. Writing under date of May 3, Mrs. Hickey, says : ' I send you separ- 

 ately some caterpillars. They have been doing considerable damage to our strawberry 

 plants. Will there be another generation of them, and, if so, what should the plants be 

 sprayed with 1 ' The specimens mentioned arrived in Ottawa on May 1 2 ; seven of them 

 had changed to the chrysalis state during the journey, but the others were still in the larval 

 condition. These also soon changed to chrysalis, and the moths emerged in due course, 

 and proved to be Mesoleuca truncata, Hufn., *a species not at all uncommon in British 

 Columbia, and almost all other parts of northern Canada. The caterpillar of this geo- 

 meter is a looper and when full grown measures about an inch in length. It is slender, 

 cylindrical, in colour yellowish-green slightly glaucous, and has pale indistinct longitu- 

 dinal stripes along the body, viz., a double dorsal band of more intense yellow than the 

 body, a subdorsal band of the same colour, but clear white on the anterior segments, and 

 a distinct yellowish ventral stripe. The tubercles on the body are white, and each bears 

 a single short slender bristle. The head and feet are concolorous with the body. Be- 

 neath the anal flap on segment 13 is a pair of prominent slender tails, tinged with pink, 

 each bearing a slender bristle at the tip. When mature the caterpillar changes to a 

 chrysalis within the folds of a leaf or between two leaves, which have been drawn to- 

 gether by threads of silk. The larvje which reached Ottawa alive, were put in a jar 

 containing earth and some dried strawberry leaves. They did not enter the earth for 

 pupation but changed to the chrysalis state as above. If these caterpillars should again 

 pi'ove troublesome in spring, the plants may be sprayed with Paris green or some other 

 *=Peirophora truncata, Hbn. 



