1 New York Agricuutural Experiment Station. 325 



economic importance. 



Fortunately this insect does not have a wide range of food 

 plants or it would doubtless have become of much more economic 

 importance than it is. Where cottonwoods, poplars or willows 

 are extensively grown, however, it may become a very serious 

 pest. In the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri, the in- 

 sects appear in great numbers, stripping the leaves from large 

 areas of these trees, thus causing serious injury throughout the 

 districts where trees of this kind are valued for timber. 



In this State the insect is a serious pest to one of the small, but 

 important industries. Probably the greatest injury was during 

 1894 and 1895. In Onondaga County, where basket willows are 

 extensively grown, from half to three-fourths of the crop was 

 rendered worthless. In the vicinity of Liverpool alone, the crop 

 was estimated to be about 1,200 tons less in 1895 than in 1894, 

 the shortage being caused by the beetles. As a further example 

 one farmer near Liverpool who grows 20 acres of willows, which 

 yield under ordinary circumstances about five tons per acre, bring- 

 ing from $16.00 to $40.00 per ton, harvested in 1894 only about 

 $200 worth of marketable willows, and the following year his re- 

 turns were but little better. This is but one of many cases of the 

 kind that might be mentioned to show the serious injury which 

 this insect is capable of doing. Fortunately the beetles were 

 somewhat less abundant during 1896 and 1897. 



IMPORTANCE AS A PEST TO NURSERY STOCK. 



As a rule the cottonwood leaf beetle does but little injury in the 

 nursery, especially in the east. There have been a few instances, 

 however, where the beetles have appeared in eastern nurseries in 

 sufficient numbers to do serious injury. One of the most important 

 of these is recorded in Insect Life 2 by Mr. Thos. B. Meehan, who 



2 1: 51. 



