14 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Your interests as fruitgrowers, in insect warfare, are my interests, too- 

 that is, we are both seeking to know all that is possible of^hese injurious 

 insects, and the best remedies in combatting them; yet our interests are 

 slightly different in some respects. While you are preparing and using 

 the common remedies for the common insects, such as the codlin moth, 

 plum curculio, currant worm, cabbage worm, and similar insects, my 

 work is more in looking after the exceptional insect attacks and for new 

 and improved remedies. However, these exceptional insects are quite as 

 likely to attack your fruit, your garden, or your farm crop as they are 

 other people's, and hence it is just as essential that we know thern and 

 how to deal with them when they do come as it is to know the common 

 ones that are with us every year. Perhaps it is even more essential, as 

 the exceptional ones, when they do appear, are usually very abundant 

 and their destruction is often rapid, and the reaction with us must be 

 quite as quick and decisive. Feeling that your interest is in this direc- 

 tion, my object at this meeting will be to take you with me, as much as I 

 can, through the season's work thus far, and show you some of the excep- 

 tional as well as some of the common insects that have been called to my 

 attention more particularly this season than in previous ones. 



WII.LOW LEAF BEETLE. 



One of the first attacks out of the ordinary was made on our willows by 

 a leaf -eating beetle, Lina lapponica. In the spring of 1S90, one or two 

 specimens of this beetle were taken on our college grounds, and we then 

 considered it a very rare beetle, and it is probably the first record of its 

 appearance in this state. This spring, before the willow leaves were out, 

 the beetles of this same species could be counted by the hundred on any 

 little willow bush in the vicinity. The appearance of the beetle at first 

 sight is much the same as that of a lady-bird, and no doubt many would 

 mistake it for a lady-bird, but it is more oblong and flat. The body is 

 oval, deep red. with six or seven black sj)ots on the wing covers, that vary 

 considerably in size. The head is black with a red margin. There are 

 two broods each season. The eggs on the leaves resemble a cluster of 

 potato beetle eggs, and the larvse, except that they are more slender and 

 different in color, resemble the wingless potato beetle larvse. Then, too, 

 like the potato beetle on the potato, this species breeds on the willow 

 leaves and feeds on thera both in the adult and growing stages. The 

 second brood of beetles can now be found on the willows. This brood is 

 yellow instead of red, and the black spots are very much larger. The wil- 

 lows have not had more than half the usual leaf surface this season, and 

 the struggle will be a close one if the beetles continue to be as numerous 

 as they have been this spring. Another species closely related to this 

 one is very destructive to the cotton-wood trees on the western tree 

 claims, and will prove much more of an annoyance to those people than 

 our species will to us, where the willow grows wild and is so common. 

 The same medicine that kills the potato beetle will kill this beetle on the 

 willow. 



