ENTOMOLOGIOAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 91 



Worms, and Oorn-Root-worms are found generally diffused over both. The Corn-Root- 

 worm, Diabrol'tca longicorids, excepted, all of these seem more destructive to a crop of 

 grain following a cjrass crop or pasture. Yet this is not always true. I have known of 

 fields of corn being seriously affected by white grubs when such fields had not Vjeen 

 devoted to grass for a single season in twenty years. 



In the case of Wire Worms some good results may be secured by fall plowing, 

 though as the adults emerge in August or September, and winter over also in this stage, 

 we can hope to do little with these. There are, however, during the winter two young 

 generations in the soil, and against these a fall plowing may and evidently does have an 

 ill effect What a summer fallow would do I have had no opportunity of learning. 

 There are no end of reported sujc^ss-js and failures among farmers, but there is so much 

 obscurity shrouding these that one cannot judge of their authenticity. Once and once 

 only, have I felt quite sure of having beaten these pests. This was in the case of a field 

 of grass land, plowed in spring and planted with potatoes. The worms nearly ruined the 

 crop, and in the fall the ground was still well populated with them. The following spring 

 potatoes that had escaped notice when the crop was harvested seemed to attract the 

 worms, and the latter were found burrowing in the tubers in greit numoers. On my 

 suggestion, hogs were turned into the field, and these rooted out and promptly disposed 

 of both potatoes and worms, no injury occurring to the following crop, which was of corn. 

 There may be some virtue in the application of kainit, although this has not as yet been 

 thoroughly and clearly demonstrated, and, besides, over the vast corn belt of the North- 

 west, its application is impracticable. For myself, I am willing to confess ignorance of 

 any unfailing, practical measure, either of prevention or destruction. Fall plowing and a 

 rapid rotation of crops are as yet the best measures we can recommend. 



White Grubs, the larvte of several of our species of Lachnosterna, appear to give pre- 

 ference to the higher lands. Where the soil of such lands is of such a nature as to wash 

 easily during winter and spring, fall plowing results in the washing out of great gullies, 

 thus constituting a grave objection to the measure. Outbreaks of this pest seem to be 

 usually of trieanial occurrence, diff-^rent localities being affected during different years, 

 and I have thought we might accomplish something by mapping out these areas, and so 

 warn the agriculturist of their prob ible appearance. Here, however, the same trouble 

 awaits us. A single mistaken prediction discourages the few who will follow our 

 direction, and we get only deriaion from the remainder. In my own correspondence I 

 have advocated the same measures agains# these as in case of the Wire Worms, viz., a 

 rapid rotation of crops, especially of grass or clover, and fall plowing, whenever it can be 

 done without detriment to the fields. What has, or is likely to be accomplished by the 

 use of fungoid parasites, I do not know. The opinion of our presiding officer, who is ex- 

 perimenting in that direction, will be of interest to us all. As in the case of the Oora 

 Root louse. Aphis maidis, Fitch, or Aphis maidi-radicis Forbes, less injury is done in 

 fields that have been fertilized with barnyard manure. 



The Ooi n Root-worm, Diobrotica longicoj-uis, Say, has by its ravages cost the farmers 

 of the Mississippi Valley millions of dollars during the last fifteen years, every penny of 

 which misiht have been saved by a judicious system of husbandry. Every member of this 

 association, located in the infested area, has again and again sounded the alarm and an- 

 nounced the remedy, yet I fear there are some who have not heard it. in Ohio it is 

 unknown, except along the we.stern border of the Stite. Its occurrence here, where it was 

 reported last year for the first time, raises the question of its eastward diffusion — a prob- 

 lem which I hope to be able to solve. The congener of this species, the Southern Oorn 

 Root-worm, Diabrotica 12-punctata, Oliv., will certainly not be managed so easily. There 

 is yet some investigation to be done on this species, before we can confidently advise in 

 regard to its destruction. It appears, in the adalt stage, to b3 well nigh omnivorous, and 

 the larvse travel freely. 



The Corn or Boll Worm, HeUothis armiger, Hbn , is more especially a Southern 

 species, though as far north as Chicago, there are during some seasons two broods, as, in 

 that portion of Illinois, I have found half -grown larvjB in the ears of ripe corn, in Novem- 

 ber. In the North the damage done is trivial, often being due to the rain and dew run- 

 ning into the affected ears, causing them to decay. Among the market gardeners, where 



