110 THE REPORT OF THE No. 36 



that even if rotation is individually practised it practically amounts to growing 

 strawberries year by year on the same piece oi ground. The best remedy for prevent- 

 ing infestation that can be suggested at present on these small farms, where the 

 weevils have become concentrated, is to stop the production of strawberries for a 

 year or two, cultivating the ground frequently, allowing chickens free range in the 

 infested patch, and then when reasonably sure that the ground is clean to evolve a 

 system entailing a barricade against the weevil which from the structure of its wing 

 covers cannot fly and is doomed to walk the earth. A wooden boarding with an 

 overlap of tin on the under surface of which is placed some sticky material such as 

 " Tree Tanglefoot " might be employed to advantage on a small farm. The frame- 

 work could be made permanent and by the annual application of some sticky 

 material for two months in the summer it might be made the means of keeping 

 a great majority of the weevils out. One grower, near Portland, Oregon, was prac- 

 tising some such scheme as this, using tar or some mixture with tar on his tin, but 

 I do not think it proved entirely successful. The principle is still an experiment 

 both as regards efficiency and cost of maintenance. 



The cheapest and most efficient mixture experimented with this summer to be 

 used on the barricade was a mixture of resin gum and boiled oil in a proportion 

 of 3 to 1. This mixture must be applied direct to the tin surface and not to the 

 wood, for the wood absorbs the oil and the plan quickly becomes worthless. Com- 

 mercial Tanglefoot will give good results, provided every care is given the question 

 of preventing rain splajshing up on to its surface. Rain-splashed it soon becomes 

 worthless, but protected, and even on a wood surface, its holds its efficiency, most 

 of the summer, on a single application. Its price might prove prohibitory to the 

 general grower. 



Unless some such plan like this is devised it seems little use growing straw- 

 berries two years in succesision on a small acre farm, for the profit to the acre is 

 liable to be so reduced that it is hardly worth while growing the plants. I should 

 assume that not much more than one acre in ten should be planted to strawberries 

 in a weevil infested district, perhaps then a system of rotation could be arranged 

 with the neighboring farmers if they were all interested in the same way. 



Another insect reported to me by correspondence from Grand Prairie, B.C., 

 is the Currant Fruit Miner (Epochra canadensis), which is present throughout 

 the Western states and British Columbia, and where Currants and Gooseberries are 

 being grown is a decided pest, the worst of its kind for the fruits it attacks. 



The Current Boeek (Aegeria tipuliformis) is another pest which would 

 assume large proportions if the crop was more planted. It is commonly to be found 

 in the Lower Fraser Valley. 



Truck Crops. 



Fully 75 per cent, of the enquiries at the Agassiz Experimental Farm have 

 been in connection with the Cabbage Maggot. I have invariably replied giving the 

 Carbolic Acid Emialsion as a remedy and the Tarred Discs. On two occasions re- 

 ports were retwrned that the Carbolic solution had given good results when applied 

 early. The truck gardeners around Vancouver suffer severely from this class of 

 insect. 



I have also received a report, with specimens enclosed, of the larvae of some 

 elater beetle — wireworms — from Mission, which were working on the tubers of 

 potatoes in the ground. The potatoes on being dug were found to have these 

 " worms " inside. 



