196 Forty-ninth Report on the State Museum 



— to reach up into the treetops, for the preservation of the two or three 

 beautiful elms that may shade and beautify his premises. True, he might 

 with a simple and inexpensive force-pump and the few feet of attached 

 hose, spray the entire foliage of his trees from his housetop, but it would 

 be labor almost wholly lost, in placing the arsenite upon the upper sur- 

 face of the leaf, instead of beneath, where needed. 



Instead, therefore, of urging upon the citizens of Albany the impracti- 

 cable, viz., arsenical spraying, I have contented myself (after indicating 

 the spraying as the proper remedy when it can be employed) in urging, 

 with all earnestness, by voice and through the public press, the necessity 

 of a watchful and persistent warfare against the insect, at each home 

 where it occurs, beginning at the time when the larvae are descending the 

 trees and the first pupa — so readily recognizable in its orange-yellow garb 

 — is seen beneath it, and continuing it for the ensuing two or three weeks^ 

 or until the last pupa has been killed. The killing of the larvae and pupae 

 is simple and involves no outlay, or a very moderate one. It only re- 

 quires that hot-water drawn from a hot-water faucet be poured over them, 

 or that they be sprinkled with kerosene. Where the method of making 

 kerosene emulsion is known, this may be sprayed upon them, using one 

 part of the emulsion to four of water. 



As somewhat militating against this remedy, it has been represented as 

 requiring frequent — almost daily repetition. This is not necessary. In- 

 tervals of five days will suffice. If all the larvae and pup^e are killed on 

 any one day, there could be no pupal transformation into the winged in- 

 sect until the sixth or seventh day thereafter. The simplicity of this 

 method is therefore evident, and there seems to be no reason why, through 

 its use, 90 per cent of the insects that descend the trees from the elms 

 upon our walks, may not be destroyed. In consideration of the many 

 contingencies that attend the hibernation of all insects, and the fatality 

 known to exist in that of the elm-leaf beetle, we would not have much to 

 fear or to suffer from the small fraction of the remaining 10 per cent of 

 the brood that might successfully accomplish their hibernation. 



