8 



ployed, the gathering up and destroying of all such rotten, in- 

 fested produce? Sometime ago I cut a small piece of a water 

 melon from one found in a field and placed it in one of my breed- 

 ing jars. From that piece, about 3 inches square, I bred 109 

 melon flies, not counting a large number of decay flies which also 

 issued from it. I have often wondered how many flies could 

 iiave been bred from the melon and how many flies would have 

 bred from the field on which w-ere many hundreds of melons. 

 Would clean cultural practice pay in a case like this one ? It 

 surely would, and on account of the habits of the insect, clean 

 cultural practice would be the only profitable way of coping wuth 

 the pest. I mentioned the destruction of weeds as pertaining to 

 clean cultural methods. Many fields after being planted to various 

 vegetables are allowed to grow up in weeds and the crops usually 

 are of inferior quality. Not only that but certain pests are at- 

 tracted to the weeds and also find good food on the growing crop. 

 After the crop is harvested the rubbish and weeds are usually 

 allowed to remain for some time and many insects collect and 

 hibernate in the tangled mass, patiently w^aiting for the next plant- 

 ing to be made. Now that the Mediterranean fruit fly is with us 

 we can readily see that the practice of clean culture, the collect- 

 ing and destroymg of all infested fruit will do much toward 

 checking this pest. In fact I have already met several who have 

 started this method and they have reported improvement in their 

 crop conditions. 



In a vegetable garden not long ago I saw a lot of old cabbage 

 plants, the remnants of the crop. The heads had been cut out 

 and the stump left and new growth had started and these plants 

 were completely covered with the cabbage aphis and nearby the 

 ground had been prepared for another cabbage crop. Now if the 

 plants had been pulled up and destroyed, tiie breeding place for 

 the aphis would not exist, and the newly planted crop would he, 

 practically speaking, free from the pest. 



We very often see a grower plant a piece of land which was 

 covered with healthy weeds and at once start to ]:)lant all kinds of 

 small crops in the field. The seeds sprout and suddenly disappear 

 and Mr. Grower can't understand what is killing the plants. He 

 calls in the Bugman, who shows him some fine fat cutworms. 

 Xature had provided a feast of weeds for lliis ])Ost. l)ut Mr. 

 Grower destroyed the food and planted new food, llad he any 

 knowledge of clean ctdture methods he would not have allowed 

 these weeds to grow long enough to attract the cutworm; also, 

 he should have plowed the weeds luider several weeks before 

 ])lanting his croj), so as to starve the ciitw(M-ms or prevent their 

 development. 



No matter where wc go or wliere we look we find some cause 

 for all the trouble with our fruits. ])lants or vegetables, 'i'he other 

 day a shi])per received word from the Coast that his bananas had 

 to be fumigated on account of scale insects. 1 le said : "Just think 

 of it. bananas infested with scale, never heard of such a thing 

 l)efore. tliought that only trees C(<nld ])v infesti-d with scale." 



