56 THE EEPOKT OF THE No. 36 



Our counts show an average of 500 live adult grasshoppers {Melanoplus femur- 

 rahnwi) to a pint and about 1,530 to a pound live weight or 4,500 to a pound 

 dry weight. The cost of a grasshopper catcher is from $15 to $25, according to 

 the amount of new materials which must be purchased, and usually it is possible 

 to secure the tin, the largest individual item of cost, as second hand roofing. Con- 

 sidering that such a machine will last for many years, it is easy to see that the 

 cost is repaid in poultry food in a comparatively short time, to say nothing of the 

 value derived by eliminating the insects. 



It is not possible to recommend one or the other of these two grasshopper 

 control measures as the more valuable. In some instances, where for example large 

 comparatively level acreages are to be covered and where labour is not scarce, the 

 grasshopper catcher can be used to better advantage and more economically than 

 llio poison bait, while in other cases the opposite is true. 



Cutworms {N octuidav.) . 



We can expect trouble from cutworms every year, and the past season has 

 not been an exception to the rule. In many sections, more especially in Iowa and 

 Wisconsin, they have been more severe than ordinarily, damaging principally corn 

 and garden crops. The Feltias were most generally common, although in many 

 localities the Euxoas were the principal depredators. In southern Indiana the 

 bottoms of the Wabash river and tributary streams are subject to what are commonly 

 termed overflow worms (Agrotis ypsilon). Some injury occurred the past season, 

 but the insects were not nearly so general as the year before. They invariably 

 appear following a late overflow, that is on land which is overflowed and covered 

 with water as late as early June. As the water leaves the ground the moths 

 make their appearance from the higher surrounding land .and lay their eggs in the 

 still wet soil; and any crop planted on this ground, which is usually corn, is likely 

 to be damaged if not completely destroyed by the cutworms. It is unusual for 

 a cutworm moth to lay its eggs in moist soil, but this appears to be the usual 

 habit of this species {Agrotis ypsilon) and it has already been recorded as a serious 

 pest in the areas overflowed by the Ganges and other rivers in India. Woodhouse 

 and Fletcher * and other authors have given us very interesting accounts of the 

 habits of this species as worked oiit in India. 



You are all familiar with the methods of controlling cutworms. Aside from 

 early fall plowing and certain rotations whereby ground likely to be infested is 

 planted to crops not susceptible to cutworm injury, we have on^y one method of con- 

 trol, which fortunately is quite efficient. Our experience teaches us that poison baits 

 such as are used against grasshoppers are equally effective against cutworms. 

 In the case of the overflow worm it is also possible to escape injury if the ground 

 is cultivated immediately after the water leaves the land and before the moths 

 lay their eggs, but this practice is applicable only for small sections of individual 

 farms, for it is not possible for the individual to cultivate a very large area before 

 the moths appear and begin oviposition. 



The So-called "Silk Bugs" .{Diai')rotica 13-punctafa and D. longicornis.) 



An insect, or rather two insects, which have ruined corn crops for many years 

 in the overflow lands of the Ohio river in south-we-tern Indiana but which liave 



*Wooclhouse, E. J., and Fletcher, T. Bainbridge. " The Caterpillar Pest of the 

 Mokameh Tal Lands." Agric. Jour., India, Vol. 8, it. 4, Od., 1912. pp. 343-354. 



