1920 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 15 



of Virginia Creeper at different parts of the city secured further specimens of 

 both insects. The beetle is quite the prettiest of the Saperdas, but small, shy, 

 and easily overlooked. In the hot sun it often climbs out to the surface of the 

 upper leaves, but takes to wing very readily and drops as readily into the heart 

 of its shrubbery. The period of emergence and activity lasts about a fortnight; 

 from May 27th to June 10th. Large numbers of a clearwing moth vrere observed 

 frequenting blossoms along the edge of a corduroy road through the heart of a 

 tamarac swamp, but so far the insect has not been determined. No other insects 

 of interest have been noted by your observer this season. 



Division No. 5, Essex Disteiot — J. W. Noble, Department of Agriculture, 



Essex. 



Attacking Field Crops. Hessian Fly has been very conspicuous in it8 

 work this year, large acreages of wheat have been cut down in yield 50 per cent, 

 and even some of the later sown wheat planted in the fall of 1918 have been badly 

 attacked. A great deal of injury has already been noticed this fall. It is altogether 

 likely to be as bad in 1920 as this year. Grasshoppers and crickets were quite 

 bad in June owing to extremely dry weather prevailing at that time. Considerable 

 damage was done to cereal grains and some other crops by these insects. Wire- 

 worms and cutworms did a great deal of damage in the spring of 1919. Cut- 

 worms have been quite successfully controlled by the poison bran mixture. 



Attacking Fruit Trees. The Codling Moth has possibly never been worse 

 in this county owing to the exceptionally favourable season for its development. 

 Even well-cared-for orchards are heavily infested with this insect. Where the 

 spraying was omitted in the season of the year three weeks after the blossoms 

 have fallen the sideworm injury is especially conspicuous, but in well-cared-for 

 orchards that received the calyx cup spray very little injury has been noticed from 

 the blossom end. A considerable number of specimens at work of Plum Curculio 

 liave been submitted for identification, but commercially speaking, the Codling 

 Moth has been much the worst insect on fruit trees. 



Fruits and Vegetables. The Onion Marsh at Leamington where about 

 600 acres were grown this year had considerable trouble from both root maggot 

 and onion thrips. Very little success has been obtained from trying to combat 

 either of these pests. 



Aphids were very bad this season on cucum'bers but did not seem to do much 

 damage to melons. The general use of Black Leaf 40 and tobacco decoction have 

 been very successful in combating these insects. Tomatoes have been greatly 

 infested this year with Tomato Sphinx, crickets and grasshoppers. Cauliflower 

 plants have suffered considerably from crickets gnawing the stems above the roots. 

 Considerable dame was done, but wet weather checked their depredations before 

 poison solution could be tried. 



Tobacco was attacked by the usual pests, the tobacco sphinx being very plenti- 

 ful this year. Dusting the small plants with arsenate of lead, spraying the partly 

 grown plants with solution and spraying the larger plants with the dust gun 

 when they were too large to allow the spray machine to be used successfully, 

 controls these worms. Wire-worms did an exceptional amount of damage to 

 tobacco plants this year and made the stand vei-y uneven in many cases. 



Greenhouse Insects. The usual greenhouse insects have been reported, but 

 where proper methods have been used very little trouble has been reported. Green- 

 house white fly, greenhouse aphids and nematodes are among the greenhouse man's 

 worst enemies. 



