66 THE REPOET OF THE No. 36 



days of spring, whereas the May-beetles, the adult form of White Grubs, remain 

 buried in the ground during the winter and come out in May or June. Com- 

 plaints of injury to the roots of many plants by the attacks of Wireworms have 

 been received from various quarters, in fact never a year goes by without much 

 loss from their depredations. The methods referred to above for the control of 

 White Grubs seem to be the only effective remedies for Wireworms also. 



Grasshoppers, which have already been referred to by Mr. Gibson, were ex- 

 tremely abundant and destructive this year, attacking oats and other cereals, and 

 injuring vegetation of almost all kinds. In this case, also, old pasture fields, 

 where the soil is dry and sandy, are the favorite breeding grounds, and hot, 

 dry weather the most suitable for their growth and increase. The worst attacks 

 were reported from the counties around the Georgian Bay. At the l^eginning of 

 August Mr. Cecil Swale, Secretary of the North Bruce Farmers' Institute, Wiar- 

 ton, wrote as follows respecting the Grasshopper plague: 

 t 



" We have had these pests for four years in succession, each year worse than the 

 preceding one. This year, I can go to farmers who off, say, 30 acres, have only got a load 

 of fodder, counting hay, grain and everything. Many cut their oats three weeks ago to 

 save what was left. I know fields to-day that are just standing oat stubs, the grain all 

 on the ground. Nobody can quite credit the destruction they can do and are doing; you 

 have to see for yourself. These pests breed in old pastures, roadsides and old meadows. 

 Lots of these pastures cannot be plowed for rock, while being well adapted to this par- 

 ticular use. Then, again, you may have a first-class farm, and your neighbour has fifty 

 acres of pasture alongside; the hoppers cross over and eat you out. You have no remedy. 

 I have a pasture farm divided from the main farm by lOO^acre swamp. I have not many 

 hoppers, as all the home farm is pretty much under cultivation; but my neighbour on 

 the other side of the pasture farm has been cleaned out by the hoppers off my pasture. 

 My cattle have been starved off the fifty acres of pasture, and I have taken them up into my 

 hardwood bush. My neighbour has not two loads of anything off a forty-acre clearance. 

 Oats and barley and grass are their chief food. Peas they seldom touch. 



" We have been thinking a few experiments might be tried to destroy the eggs of 

 the grasshoppers in the fall, such as lime, salt, or a mixture of both, used as a top dress- 

 ing on pastures. Possibly a spraying of formalin and water might destroy those now 

 living. The eggs are laid in September by the grasshoppers depositing them in small 

 bunches of twenty or thirty eggs stuck together just below the surface. Skunks dig up 

 great quantities of them in October. I opened a number of grasshoppers yesterday that 

 seemed very large. Nine out of ten were filled with thread-worms, white, six inches 

 long, which would seem to point out a possibility of the brutes dying soon. They are 

 also infested with a bright red parasite. There are thousands of dead ones all over the 

 meadows, but there would be no room for the living if some of them did not die. Nat- 

 urally dry weather favours their increase, and as the last three summers have been dry 

 we have had an extra hard ci^ack from them. Matters are so serious with the farmers of 

 the townships of Albemarle, Amabel and Keppel (in Grey) that I know many farmers 

 will leave their farms, and many more would go if they could. We all thought last year 

 would be the last of them, but the contrary was the case. Nobody cares to venture an 

 opinion about next year now. 



" As the grasshopper dies in the fall, the remedy appears to lie in getting after the 

 eggs. The Griddle mixture, as recommended by one of the bulletins, does not work here; 

 they won't eat it. They don't seem to eat anything which has been dosed with Paris 

 green. I am sure the careful consideration of this matter will be most acceptable to all 

 of us who are unfortunate enough to live in this district." 



The Criddle mixture has been so often tried and found effective on a large 

 scale in Manitoba and in many places in Ontario, that we are surprised to learn 

 of its failure in this case. Mr. Criddle himself states that many applications of 

 the mixture have beei^ made this year and that it has proved entirely effective. 

 It may be that some error was made in its preparation or mode of distribution. 



The white worms found inside the bodies of some Grasshoppers are com- 

 monly called "Hair-snakes" (Gordius) and are well-known parasites of both 

 crickets and grasshoppers. They evidently destroy large numbers, but amongst 

 such hosts as above described, it would require an enormous army of the worms to 



