304 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE OfC. Doc. 



Ants on lawns, in houses, in cornfields, attending aphids or plant 

 lice, on fruit trees, and otherwise. We have shown that ants in 

 lawns can be destroyed by making holes in the ground reaching 

 to the bottom of their nests and into each hole pouring a half tea- 

 spoonful of Carbon Bisulfid. From houses they are best extermi- 

 nated by tracing their path or line they follow to their nests and 

 pouring benzine or gasoline into the nest to destroy the queen. 

 Ants in cornfields, in the spring, have proven annoying, not by their 

 direct injury, but by taking care of the plant lice which infest the 

 roots of corn plants and prove quite obnoxious. To overcome this 

 it is best to plow the ground in the fall, and cultivate it as late as 

 possible until it freezes, and in the early spring cultivate again 

 with a spring-toothed harrow, then harrow it later and plant the 

 corn late after having kept down the weeds and grass of early 

 spring. Many persons see the ants on trees or shrubs and ask for 

 a remedy. It is not the ants that should be remedied, but the 

 plant lice, which are attracting these little insects. Many ants are 

 seen going up and down trees, and it may almost always be taken 

 that it is because either plant lice or scale insects are present on 

 the branches or leaves of the trees, and by the sweet secretions 

 called honey dew, they are furnishing food to the ants. Contact 

 insecticides ridding the trees of suctorial pests will soon result in 

 the disappearance of the ants. 



Aphids and plant lice have been the subject of a great deal of 

 correspondence. They are especially liable to appear upon the 

 leaves of trees during the early summer and cause these leaves 

 to become deformed or twisted out of shape. Within the leaf and 

 upon the branches beneath them, as well as upon the ground, are 

 often found glistening or shiny drops and rather black sooty spots. 

 These shiny drops looking like honey are called honey dew, and 

 the dark spots are the results of a fungus developing in the honey 

 dew. The best remedy for plant lice is to spray with contact insec- 

 ticides, such as one pound of whale oil soap dissolved in six gallons 

 of water, applied just as the buds are bursting, or the lime-sulphur 

 solution applied as for San Jos6 Scale, applying it after the buds 

 swell and just when the first of them commence, to burst and show 

 green. W^e have sprayed trees with the green leaves quite apparent 

 and the pink of the blossoms commencing to show, and have killed 

 the scale insects and plant lice without injury to the leaves or fruit. 

 The lime-sulphur regularly recommended was used for this. 



The apple aphis passes the winter in the form of eggs on the 

 branches of the trees, and is thus easily reached by a good contact 

 insecticide. I have also had very positive reports of the cherry 

 aphis, sometimes called the brown plant lice, having been destroyed 

 by the spring application of the lime-sulphur wash for San Jos^ 

 Scale. In some portions of this State the Green Louse or Plant 

 Louse on the ' otato Iips been so abundant as to have proven destruc- 

 tive, but it can be held in check by spraying with whale oil soap 

 solution or strong decoction of tobacco or eight per cent, kerosene 

 emulsion. The Gray Maple Aphis has caused a great deal of alarm 

 by its appearance on the under sides of Norway maple shade trees 

 along streets, and causing the leaves to fall abundantly about mid- 

 summer. While this was unusually abundant during the past year, 



