47 
especially on the latter. In the southern part of the State it injured 
the tomato crop to a considerable extent. Spraying with Paris green 
and with other arsenical compounds was tried with considerable success 
previous to the ripening of the fruit, but there is considerable danger 
in its use and it is best to thoroughly drench the plants that have been 
treated with clear water a day or two after the use of the insecticide. 
Experiment on a limited scale shows that it can be kept from corn by 
the same remedies, but how far this would be practicable in the field 
_has not yet been demonstrated. 
The Striped Flea-beetles (Phyllotreta vittata and P. sinuata) did not ap- 
pear at all on early Crucifers, nor have they been observed in any con- 
iderable numbers in this vicinity at any time during the growing sea- | 
son. Whether this notable riddance was due to atmospheric conditions 
or to the scarcity of the fostering weeds, Lepidium and Arabis, I am not 
able to decide. 
The Corn Flea-beetle (Chetocnema pulicaria) was reported to me from 
various localities as unusually numerous and injurious. Mr. Falcon, of 
St. Clair County, feared that he should lose his first planting from its 
attacks, but from later accounts the plants recovered more rapidly 
than he had expected. 
The Plum Curculio was much reduced in numbers during winter, and 
as there was in this section, and indeed throughout the State, an almost 
entire failure of stone fruit crops, with the exception of the sour cher- 
ries, which the insect rarely attacks, there was very little of the work 
of the latter observed. A small proportion of the few early peaches 
that set were punctured, but that the midsummer drought prevented 
the development of the larvie was indicated by the fact that such late 
peaches as there were did not show a single one of the food punctures 
which commonly so disfigure them. On one tree which the previous 
year had suftered so much in this way that the fruit was absolutely 
worthless, was a single peach that reached perfection without one 
stroke from the beak of a curculio; and similar observations were 
made on other trees on which a very little fruit ripened. Nor was I 
able to find Conotrachelus breeding in apples, although during June 
and July I examined nearly six hundred specimens of fruit, a few of 
which showed punctures that might have been made for food. Should 
other conditions be favorable, I think, so far as this insect is concerned, 
we may predict for 1891 fine crops of stone fruits. 
Plant lice, always quite abundant in the spring, amounted this year 
almost to a scourge. Trees, shrubs, and herbs alike suffered, and for 
many plants there was no after-recovery. The species causing the most 
appreciable loss was probably the Grain Aphis (Siphonophora avene). It 
occurred throughcut the State on all small grain, even on rye, causing, 
undoubtedly, some shrinkage of that crop as well as of wheat, but its 
most disastrous attacks were on oats. About the middle of May farm- 
ers began to be alarmed for the safety of this crop, and subsequent 
