SUMMER MEETING. 47 



Our Insect Pests. 



Mr. L. A. Goodman, Secretary Horticultural Society : 



I had made my plans for attending the meeting at Columbia, and 

 am keenly disappointed not to be able to go, but alarming illness in my 

 family for the last two weeks has not only prevented my attendance, 

 but has incapacitated me trom completing an essay intended for the 

 evening program. 



In the name of the Committee on Entomology, I would report tha^ 

 the present season has brought to the fore some fruit-tree destroyers 

 not heretofore catalogued among our serious enemies. Among these 

 is the Buffalo tree-hopper {Geresa bubalusj. This is a small, green, 

 jumping insect, shaped, when in the perfect state, like an elongate 

 beechnut, and is about one-half the size of the latter. It may be found 

 on most fruit-trees and on many deciduous shade-trees, but its most 

 injurious effects are seen on the apple. I had twigs sent to me this spring 

 from a dozen different localities in the State, including the i^orthern, 

 Southern, Eastern and Western divisions, bearing either the two or 

 three inch-long rows of its fresh punctures, or having the bark scarred 

 and blistered with the punctures of two or three successive years. 

 These punctures are made by the female in placing her eggs, and greatly 

 injure the vigor of the twig, even if they do not cause its death. When 

 the eggs hatch, the small, soft, green, bug-like larvae cause the leaves 

 to turn yellow from the effects of the pricks of their myriad, tiny 

 beaks in pumping out the sap. I am making some especial studies on 

 the habits of this insect, and hope to be able to give a more complete 

 account of it, and of the best remedies for it, ina succeeding report. 



Another apple-tree pest not yet known to me was sent some weeks 

 ago by Mr. Gilbert, of Thayer, who found it working under the bark 

 of some young trees of Missouri Pippin. It caused the bark to shrink 

 and harden in spots as large as a half dollar, and if very numerous 

 would undoubtedly seriously injure the tree. The borer is a whitish, 

 smooth sub-cylindrical lepidopterous larva, about a half inch in length 

 by one-tenth inch in diameter. The head is broad and brown, and the 

 jaws usually strong. It appears to be the young of some Tortricid 

 moth, which I cannot place until it emerges. Mr. Gilbert sent two of 

 these larvfe, but unfortunately for me, though it should be good news 

 to apple-growers, one of these was parasited. T,he other has not yet 

 completed ite transformations. 



A third insect which bids fair to prove very troublesome is the 

 Twig-blight beetle ( Scolytus ruguloms), a very small bark beetle which 



