PREVENTIVES OF INSECT DEPREDATIONS. 63 



Attracting, for pupation, the larvaa of the apple-worm to paper 

 bands placed about the trees, from the latter part of June to their dis- 

 appearance, — the bands to be examined at intervals of about ten days, 

 for the removal and killing of the pupa3. 



Attracting nocturnal feeders to shelters of pieces of wood, bark, 

 chips, leaves, bunches of freshly-mown grass, placed in gardens ; for 

 the curculio, squash-bug {Anasa tristis De Geer), the harlequin cab- 

 bage-bug [Murfjantia histrionica) in the South, for cut-worms, etc. 



Attracting to baits of sliced potato or other vegetables buried be- 

 neath the ground in gardens, upon the end of a stick for convenience 

 of examination ; for wire-worms (larv?e of the ElateridcB or snapping 

 beetles, Melayiotns communis Sch., etc.). 



PREVENTIVES OF INSECT DEPREDATIONS. 



Our more accurate writers in economic entomology, in the recom- 

 mendations which they present for the arrest of insect depredations, 

 have, of late, made a very proper distinction between ijreventive and 

 remedial measures. If we construe an " insect attack " in its broadest 

 sense, as a habit pertaining to a species of insect, of regularly attack- 

 ing a plant or an animal, then its arrest at any time or in any man- 

 ner may properly be regarded as a remedy of the evil, and remedial 

 measures would thus comprise preventive ones. But if Ave limit the 

 "attack" to each separate periodical recurrence of the same, then^it 

 is possible by the interposition of preventives to preclude the attack 

 and to render remedies unnecessary, and, indeed, impossible. In this 

 latter sense, "remedies" imply that an attack has commenced; ** pre- 

 ventives," that means are resorted to prior to the commencement of 

 attack. 



Of the latter are such measures as- the following : — 



High culture, to impart strength to resist insect attack, by jiroper 

 preparation of the soil and employment of fertilizers. 



Rotation of crops and their removal as far distant as possible from 

 the soil which has become infested witli their attacking insects. 



Selection of seed less liable to attack : thus it is claimed that the 

 Hessian fly has not been found in Lancaster nor Fultz* wheat [B^ill. 

 No. 4, of U. S. Entomological Commission — The Hessian Fly, p. "l^) . 



Refraining for a year or two in an infested locality from the culti- 

 vation of crops formidably attacked. 



Late sowing: for the Hessian fly, after the first frosts occurring about 

 the 20th of September in New York.f 



♦Originating near Allenville, Penn., from tiiree tall stalks bearing peculiar looking 

 heads, picked bv Mr. Fultz in 18G2, in a field of broken-down and tangled Lancaster red 

 wheat (JV««; York Weeklt/ Tribune, for Jan. 17, 1883, p. 11, col. 2). 



t The wheat seeding in New York last year (1881) extended from August 15th to October 

 80th, averaging September 16th {Special Beport — No. 42, Dept. Agriculture, p. 5). 



