56 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



REMEDIES FOR INSECT DEPREDATIONS 



In the preceding notice of the principal Insecticides, such directions 

 have been given for their use, together with mention of some of the 

 insects against which they may be employed, as should enable any 

 careful person, possessing even a moderate knowledge of the insect 

 world, to use them with safety, with discrimination, and with success, 

 selecting from the number the one which may seem to be the best 

 adapted to the existing emergency, after giving due consideration to 

 the object attacked, the season of the attack, the nature of the attack, 

 and the insect attacking. The frequent inquiries in the pages of our 

 agricultural papers in regard to the use of Paris green, London pur- 

 ple, gas-lime, etc., show, that notwithstanding all that has been pub- 

 lished in relation to them, there is still a wide-spread ignorance of 

 their proper methods of use, and an increasing desire for the infor- 

 mation which we have endeavored to bring together in convenient form. 



It will also be of service to those who are desirous of availing them- 

 selves of the knowledge already obtained of the means for the control 

 of insect ravages, to present, in this connection, some of the many reme- 

 dies and preventives which have been successfully employed for the 

 purpose. Several pages could be filled with them, but those given will 

 serve to suggest others. In the brief form in which they are offered, 

 they may be regarded as a list of weapons serviceable in our warfare 

 with insects, while the skill for their use, the knowledge of how and 

 when to use them to the best advantage, and against what insect foes, 

 may be better learned by experiment than through a long detail of di- 

 rections — impossible to give in limited space, and necessarily reserved 

 for the discussion of special insect attacks. 



The remedies which consist in the use of the insecticides already 

 noticed are omitted. Others, are the following : — 



Hand-picking and destroying the eggs : as those of the currant- 

 worm {Nematus veniricosus) on the lower leaves of currant bushes, 

 and of the apple-tree tent-caterpillar {CUsiocampa Americana) on 

 the leafless twigs in autumn or winter.* 



Hand-picking the larva: as the tobacco- worm [Macrosila qmnqne- 

 inaculata), the sphinx and other large caterpillars of the grape-vine, etc. 



*At a time when the ravages of the caterpillars of the Grape-vine Tortrix, of Europe, 

 (Enectra PiUeriana (W. V.), were unusually excessive, it was found that the best means 

 of abating the evil was by picking off the leaves containing the eggs of the moth which 

 were laid in clusters of about sixty each. In one vineyard of one hundred and fifty hec- 

 tares, thirty persons (women and children) were employed for eleven days in gathering 

 and destroying the egg-clusters ; and during this time they collected 1,134,000 of the clus- 

 ters, representing over sixty-eight millions of caterpillars which would have been produced 

 by them. This method proved so effectual that a decree of Government was demanded 

 compelling the proprietors of the vineyards to perform it annually. 



