INSECTS IXJUEIOUS TO ONTARIO CEOPS IN 1904. 

 By Dr. James Fletcher, Dominion Entomologist. 



The season of 1904 was very similar to that of 1903 being irregular and 

 on the whole unmarked by serious attack by insects upon our staple crops. 

 The systematic entomologist has seldom seen such a poor collecting year, and 

 with few exceptions outbreaks by injurious crop enemies were few. There 

 were, as usual, local occurrences of cutworms, plum curculio, asparagus bee- 

 tles, root maggots, etc., but most of the regular pests of the farm and garden 

 wrre absent. No new insect enemies of importance were recorded during the 

 past year. Loss from the ravages of the San Jose Scale was considerable in 

 the small corner of the Province infested by that insect; but careful spray- 

 ing was invariably followed by good results. 



Cereal Crops. 



Cereal crops throughout the province suffered little from insect enemies. 

 There was very little injury by Hessian Fly, although Prof. Lochhead received 

 c( mplaints from Wentworth and Halton Counties, On the whole the wheat 

 crop .suffered much less than it has done in recent years from Hessian Fly 

 and other Insects. Perhaps the worst injury to wheat was from rust. Oats 

 were a tine crop, both yield and quality being above the average. 



The Pea Weevil has been scarcer this year than for a great many years. 

 Owing to the excessive ravages of this insect, many farmers during the past 

 two or three years had almost given up growing this important crop, but the 

 yield of 1904 and the general quality of the grain reaped will do much to re- 

 store confidence in peas as a paying crop, and a much larger acreage of this 

 pulse may be looked for next year. It is surely of the greatest importance 

 for all members of our Society to use every endeavor to persuade farmers to 

 take the utmost care to sow no seed peas next spring, unless they are certain 

 that they have been fumigated to destroy any chance weevils they might con- 

 tain. As with every other frequently occurring injurious insect, the best 

 work can be done by applying remedies even more assiduously than usual in 

 those years when the enemy is present in the smallest numbers, and the pres- 

 ent time seems opportune for us to continue vigorously our campaign against 

 the Pea Weevil which was begun two years ago, and which has certainly had 

 much to do with the present satisfactory diminution in injury by the Pea Wee- 

 vil. It will be remembered that the remedies for the Pea Weevil are: 1. 

 Sowing early so as to hurry on maturity as much as possible. 2. Reaping 

 directly the crop is in a fit condition and threshing and fumigating with bi- 

 sulphide of carbon at once, the seed to be then bagged up and kept in bags 

 until required for use. As a general precaution no seed peas should ever be 

 used while the Pea Weevil is abundant which are not known to have been 

 treated, and buyers should always demand from their seedsmen such seed. 

 There are several other methods of treating weevilly peas, besides fumigat- 

 ing, one of the most convenient being to sprinkle a little coal oil or turpentine 

 over the seed and turning it well for two or three days before sowing. An- 

 other effective method is to hold over the seed in tight bags until the second 

 year. The weevils always emerge the first spring after maturing and as they 

 cannot perforate the sacks, they will die many months before the bags need 

 be opened to use the grain. 



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