ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 69 



more often by far than the cases cited by me. The importance of fall plowing to destroy 

 forms hibernating in the soil is not even suspected by many of our farmers, but need not 

 be dwelt upon here. 



In one other way much may be done to check many forms of destructive insect life — 

 the scientiBc application of chemical manures, or fertilizers. 



In the older States the natural fertility of the soil has long been exhausted, and it is 

 necessary to supply the necessary plant food in some form. The traditional fertilizer is 

 barnyard manure, and to this a very large proportion of the farmers cling as the only true 

 material. Scientific experiments and investigations have shown that the necessary ele- 

 ments of plant food can be as well or better furnished in the shape of inorganic substances, 

 and that they possess in many directions points of superiority over the traditional barnyard 

 manure. In New Jersey the use of these chemical or " artificial " fertilizers or manures is 

 annually increasing, and many of our best trucker.', those that actually make farming pay, 

 use nothing else. Merely as an instance of the result it may be recorded that the finest 

 strawberries shown in Chicago this year were from New Jersey and were grown with 

 chemical fertilizers only. 



It occurred to me, some years ago, when I noted that farms where these chemicals 

 were used were unusually frte from insects, that they might have insecticide properties 

 that could be very usefully employed. Peach orchards were then suffering quite severely 

 from the Aplns persicce-niger, which sapped the roots, especially of small ai.d nursery trees, 

 and my first experiments were directed to the question of the effect of kainit and muriate 

 of potash on plant lice. 1 found them sufficiently effective to risk recommending them for 

 use, particularly the kainit. Since that time almost every large grower of peaches in the 

 State has dosed his infested trees with kainit, and I have not yet found an instance of 

 failure where it was intelligently applied. How far stupidity can go is shown by a grower 

 who carefully piled little hills of this material around his nursery trees, to make certain it 

 should all get to the roots. He lost almost every one of his trees, though the application, 

 if broadcasted, would have been considered a moderate one only. Of course the potash 

 acted as a stimulant and supplied netded plant food ; but even though part of the improve- 

 ment was explainable in this way in some cases, yet it really made very little difference 

 so long as the primary object, the destruction of the Aphids, is concerned. 



In some sections of New Jersey the Corn Web-worm has become somewhat trouble- 

 some of late years, and in this season of 1893 is worse than ever before. I have inquired 

 and examined carefully in a number of cases, and in every case I found that where 

 chemical manures were used injury was insignificant or entirely wanting, while in many 

 other fields in which old methods were employed no stand was obtained after two or even 

 three replantings, and the fields loooked excessively ragged and uneven. In one of the 

 bulletins of the Delaware Experiment Station this fact is quite evidently brought out, 

 though not aimed at in the experiment made. Muriate of potash is less effective than 

 kainit, but has very decided insecticide value. Nitrate of soda ranks close to kainit in 

 effectiveness, and is peculiarly valuable as a fertilizer from the rapidity with which it 

 becomes available as plant foud, strengthening and stimulating growth as well as destroying 

 insects, I have had opportunities several times this year to note wire-worm injury ou 

 farms treated by chemical fertilizers as compared with those on which the usual routine 

 was followed, and the verdict was always and vastly in favor of the chemical manures. No 

 insects can live for any lengthy time in a soil saturated with these fertilizers, and I have 

 tried all forms that have come under my notice. Mr. Fletcher found white hellebore 

 very effective against the cabbage maggot ; tried on a maggot that is found in diseased 

 onions, hellebore was far inferior in its action to kainit or nitrate of potash. Truckers 

 using these materials constantly are a unit in claiming practical exemption from cut-worm 

 injury, which is often very severe on plant crops. 



I have no desire to present statistics on this subject ; these I will reserve for another 

 occasion ; my object will be gained by the few citations that have been made and which 

 are examples of those upon which I base my faith that the intelligent use of fertilizers will 

 be of very great aid in eventually freeing us from the injuries of many troublesome 

 species. 



