TWENTY FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 14B 



But is there no cause nor remedy for the present condition? I think 

 there are both. Perhaps the first step in the down grade was when the 

 blacks fell below five cents per quart and the reds below six. It was a 

 question with many where the profit came in. The tried and true prov- 

 erb, that ''whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well," was 

 thought not to apply to the raspberry, and so an annual cutting out of 

 the old canes and a trip or two through the rows with a cultivator was 

 about all the care bestowed. Some of the neighbors thought to econo- 

 mize in labor and fertilizer, and plowed a deep furrow in the space 

 between the rows, put in the old canes, and turned the earth over them. 

 This was just what the insects and disease spores wanted — a good cover- 

 ing for the winter. So, when spring came, they were all ready for busi- 

 ness, a hundred thousand strong. One man who two years ago harvested 

 over 600 bushels, this year did not have 100, as a result, mostly, of the 

 above treament. 



Our friend from Ionia is expected to tell how to grow big crops of 

 blackberries, and will no doubt treat of their cultivation and breeding. 

 The same will apply to the raspberry for the most part. So I will con- 

 fine my remarks chiefly to injurious insects and diseases of the raspberry, 

 not knowing at all, but hoping to call out facts from some of you that may 

 not be generally known. 



The insect that is doing the most damage to the raspberry in this sec- 

 tion, and the injury has come to be quite serious, is the tree cricket. I 

 Lave never seen it described as a katydid, or as belonging to that family, 

 but the two insects are certainly very much alike. They are about three 

 quarters of an inch long, pale-green, semi-transparent, with dark stripes 

 on the head and thorax. They have long legs and antennae which are 

 also dark colored. The female lays her eggs during the early autumn. 

 It is not her eggs so much as her method of laying them that causes so 

 much mischief. She is furnished with a long ovipositor with which she 

 punctures the tender canes more than half way through, laying an egg in 

 each opening thus made until a dozen or more are laid. This weakens 

 the cane to such an extent that it is broken off before the next season, 

 and thus the crop is diminished one half or more. The eggs, or at least 

 the most of them, do not hatch until spring, so the remedy would seem to 

 be to cut off all the infested canes just below the row of eggs and burn 

 them. 



Another serious enemy is the red-necked agrilus. The full-grown 

 beetle is scarcely half an inch in length, with a small, dark-bronze head, 

 a beautiful bright, coppery neck, and brownish black wing-covers. The 

 under surface is of a shining black color. The eggs are deposited on the 

 young canes during midsummer and soon hatch. The young larvae feed 

 in the sap-wood, working all around the cane and up and down an inch or 

 two, thus producing quite a bunch or swelling, called by Mr. Riley the 

 raspberry gouty-gall. 



But, not satisfied with this mischief, the larva, upon the approach of 

 cold weather (Mr. Saunders says in April or May), penetrates into the pith 

 and works dow^n toward the ground, destroying the cane as far down as 

 it goes. I have found larvae in early spring very near the ground. 



The same remedy will apply in this case as in the former. 



Still another pest is the raspberry cane borer, with numerous scien- 

 tific aliases. The insect is a long-horned beetle, with a long, narrow, 



