MICHIGATSr STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



345 



1867, wc find a brief reference, made by Mr. G. E. Bracketfc of 

 Belfast, Me., in answer to a certain " E. B./' of a '•' -worm that 

 eats into the crown of the plant and kills it." The worm 

 referred to was, in all probability, the Crown Borer under 

 consideration, but as no postoffice address of the questioner is 

 given, the paragraph might just as well never hare been 

 written, for any light that it throws on the distribution of the 

 insect However, no such insect has ever been mentioned by 

 our Eastern writers on the Strawberry, and we must necessarily 

 conclude that it does not exist in the Atlantic States. 



[FlGUBH 11.] 



> cc h 



Stra-wbcrry Crown Borer— (fl) larva ; (6) beetle, eldo yiew ; (c) same, bade view. 



This insect has done considerable damage to the strawberry 

 •crop in the Southern portion of your own State, especially 

 along the line of the Illinois Central R. R. ; and I have seen 

 evidence of its work in St. Louis county, Mo. At the meeting 

 of the Southern Illinois Fruit Growers' Association, held at 

 South Pass in November, 1807, several complaints were made 

 by parties from Anna and Makanda, of a white worm which 

 worked in the roots of their strawberries; and in 1868, the 

 greater portion of the plants of a ten-acre field at Anna, 

 belonging to Mr. Parker Earle, was destroyed by it. 



In the fall of 1869 I had some correspondence with Mr. 

 Walsh on this insect, and learned that he had succeeded in 

 breeding it to the perfect state ; and had it not been for his 

 untimely death, its history would no doubt have been pub- 

 lished a year ago. Through the kindness of Jos. M. Wilson 

 of Sterling, Whiteside county, and of J. B. Miller of Anna, 

 54 



