198 Journal of Agricultural Research voi. xv, no. 3 



and that any measure which will destroy them in this location will have 

 immediate effect in preventing further loss from this source. 



It is very evident that plowing under and planting of the field to a 

 different crop will absolutely prevent further injury from the stock of 

 insects established in any old meadow, and therefore rotation, where this 

 is practicable, may be counted a certain remedy for the field concerned. 

 However, for the protection of adjacent fields or in order to exterminate 

 the insect as completely as possible the borders of the fields and the fence 

 rows usually supporting a considerable growth of grass should be remem- 

 bered and, for the disposal of this insect, should be plowed as closely to 

 the border as possible or burned over when the grass is dry, so as to 

 destroy the eggs as completely as possible. 



Where rotation is impracticable or undesirable, it will be more difficult 

 to obtain complete eradication, and careful tests of treatment, based on 

 the habits of the insect, are necessary to determine the most successful 

 methods. 



It is clear that burning over of meadows if sufficiently dry in autumn 

 or early spring so as to destroy the eggs would be very effective, but 

 there are, of course, many objections to this treatment so that it can not 

 be urged as sufficient. In some seasons probably there would be no time 

 when the grass would burn sufficiently close to the ground to destroy 

 any large part of the eggs and there is the danger, if burned too deeply, 

 that the stand of grass will be injured. This method, especially for the 

 conditions prevailing in Maine, does not seem to promise much. Where 

 burning is practiced, it should assist. It would be worth while to com- 

 pare results in field so treated. 



Early or late cutting of the cfop may have some effect on the number 

 of eggs laid in a field, an early cutting, before the insects are mature, for 

 example, depriving them of their usual form of food, the heads of grass, 

 may reduce egg deposition, but whether to such an extent as to warrant 

 any special change in the usual practice as to time of cutting can only be 

 determined by further study. 



The application of any form of insecticide or of special kinds of fertilizers 

 does not seem to offer any very practical relief, and the use of hopper- 

 dozers or mechanical devices for their capture have not been tested ; nor 

 do they have much promise. 



Finally there is the important consideration of the spread of the insect 

 into adjacent fields or farms or to more distant points, and for this the 

 facts obtained furnish a very sure foundation for effective control. 

 Since practically the only opportunity for such wider distribution is by 

 carriage of hay, the disposal of any such material introduced where the 

 insect is not present in some way so as to avoid scattering the eggs where 

 they can hatch where suitable food plants will be available for their sub- 

 sistence will serve to exclude them. 



