INJURIOUS INSECTS OF THE SESSON OF 1893. 



BY MARY E. MURTFELDT, KIRKWOOD, MO. 



Entomologist of the State Horticultural Society . 

 INTRODUCTION. 



The list of insect depredators of the past year inclades not only 

 the ever-repeated story of " Canker-worm, Codling-moth and Cuncu- 

 lio," but several species with whose destructive work we had within the 

 boundaries of our State, no, or but very slight, previous acquaintance. 

 Among these the Buffalo Tree-hopper, the Osage Orange worm, the 

 Grape-vine Scale and the Horn Fly are fully treated in the following 

 pages, while a few others of which much complaint was made, such as 

 the Peach-tree Scale, the Fruit Bark-beetle, a Clear-winged Apple- 

 borer, received from Mr. Gilbert, and several large caterpillars, which 

 were locally very injurious, have been reserved for a future paper, 

 after the collection of futher data and more careful study and experi- 

 ment. 



The appearance and habits of all the pre eminent orchard pests 

 are now familiar to most intelligent orchardists, but there is still a 

 great diversity of opinion concerning methods of eradication. Spray- 

 ing with the various arsenites, while efficacious upon the pip-fruits, 

 has proved more or less dangerous to all varieties of stone-fruits, and 

 cannot be recommended for general practice as a remedy for Curculio. 

 If the use- of Paris-green spray upon peaches proved disastrous in 

 the hands of one so systematic, thorough and careful as the proprietor 

 of the Flint Hill fruit farms (see Mr. Gilbert's paper on the subject), 

 nothing, surely, is to be hoped for it as applied hurriedly and irregu- 

 larly by the general orchardist. 



We may as well acknowledge that the Curculio problem is still 

 unsolved. North America is the home of the insect, and while, unlike 

 the aborigines of higher orders of animals, its welfare and multiplica- 

 tion are promoted by the accessories of civilization, when these fail 

 it has other resources, and consequently has, so far, proved invincible 

 by any methods of warfare devised by the horticulturist or entomolo- 

 gist. We can hope, at most, only to keep it in check, and — though 



