THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 585 



applied especially to spring and winter wheat and the different varieties 

 of both of these. 



To provide a ready market for such carefully produced seed to which 

 the name "pedigreed seed" is well applied. 



For a grower to be able to say that there was neither dodder nor any 

 other weeds growing in the field where his red clover seed was produced 

 should put it far ahead of any of the ordinary sort of seed offered for 

 sale. A large per cent of the red clover seed sold in this country is 

 imported from Europe, where dodder and many other bad weeds are 

 abundant. Our commonest weed pests have, many of them, been 

 brought to us in this way. 



The permanent organization of the Seed Growers' Association will 

 undoubtedly be completed in a few months. 



With the constantly increasing demand for better grades of seeds, 

 on the part of both farmers and dealers in the State, and the remarkably 

 favorable conditions for seed production here, growing for the market 

 should be a very good industry. It is true that within the last year a 

 vast improvement in the quality of the seed offered for sale in the 

 State is noticeable. With the combined efforts of the Commissioner in 

 charge and Seed Growers' Association, Washington farmers should be 

 able to buy high grade clean seed. 



A NEW HOST PLANT OF THE CALIFORNIA GRAPE ROOT- 

 WORM. 



(Adoxus obscurus Linn.) 



By Edw. J. Branigan, Field Deputy, State Insectary, Sacramento, Cal. 



While on a recent trip into the high Sierras engaged in the regular 

 fall field work of locating the winter hibernating quarters of Hippo- 

 damia convergens Guer., the native ladybird beetle, which is used so 

 extensively by California growers in combating the attacks of various 

 species of aphids, my attention was attracted by the very peculiar insect 

 injury to the leaves and roots of a very large plant {Saxifraga pelt at a 

 Torr.^) which grows so abundantly along the borders of swift running 

 streams that in many cases it entirely covers the rocks. The roots 

 extend into the shallow water and the plant sends forth dense foliage 

 in such profusion as to hide the water for some distance. The leaves 

 are very large. 



Upon examination of this plant I found the leaves to appear like fine 

 net work, due to the severe attacks of some leaf-eating insect, and upon 

 closer inspection noted that this injury bore a marked resemblance to 

 the injury inflicted upon the foliage of the grape when attacked by the 

 California grape root-worm (Adoxus ohscurus) . The roots also showed 

 a similar injury. 



Knowing this insect to occur practically all through the Sierra Nevada 

 Mountains at a great variety of elevations, ranging from the valley as 



'Jepson in his book — "Flora of V^estern Middle California"— has the following to 

 say of Saxifraga peltata Torr. : "It is a remarkable species of the Sierra Nevada and 

 Tollo Bolly mountains, growing along swiftly flowing mountain streams ; it has peltate 

 leaves one to two feet in diameter and petioles two to three and one half feet high." 



