iOO 



A iwwder-post beetle {Lyctus .sfriatus Melsh.)^ is oausinj? much 

 concern to wholesale houses dealing- with ax handles and wheel spokes, 

 shafts, and tlie like. 



This office is ready to indorse the borax remedy for cockroaches or 

 croton bugs, having met with complete success with its use after 

 trying without good results various other remedies. 



Lochuosferna spp. has been extremely injurious this season, woi'k- 

 ing not only on sod, but also on the roots of Avheat and barley, and 

 has been found by the writer killing, in nurseries, the Colorado blue 

 spruce, a tree which brings nurserymcTi from $2 to 85 when -4 feet 

 high. The sj)ecies has been identified in some instances as rugosa, 

 and other specimens are now in the breeding cage awaiting transforma- 

 tion. One nurseiyman told the writer that he had lost some years 

 ago through the agency of this genus ever}' small evergreen tree 

 except his cedars. 



This has been a bad year for x)otato beetles, it being claimed that 

 they have not been so numerous for a number of years. 



The horn fly, as was to be expected, has been troublesome on cattle 

 and other stock. 



Of the leading i^ests of Minnesota — grasshoppers, the chinch bug, 

 and Hessian fly — we have to report very little injury from the first, 

 which in 1002 made themselves conspicuous in the northwestei-u cor- 

 ner of the State. I refer to the native form Melanoplus atlanis, which 

 was quite destructive last year, but hardly heard from during the sea- 

 son just passed. This is undoubtedl}^ in part due to the fact that a 

 grasshopper law was passed by the legislature last winter obliging the 

 ownier or lessee of land declared infested with grasshopper eggs to 

 plow said land. Farmers and others promptly took care of large 

 tracts of land which had lain fallow for several years in the north- 

 western part of the State, the same being known to have been a fre- 

 quent l)]-eeding ground of the pest previously. The few cases of 

 injur}' reported this season could be traced directly to one or two 

 plats of land which had not been plowed, the bill becoming a law too 

 late to be effective in tliese cases this season. Weather conditions 

 have done much to influence the work of the chinch bug, which, with 

 the exception of Stearns and adjoining counties in the central part of 

 the State, has not caused any special injury. But in the counties 

 above mentioned, ])arliculai'ly in Stearns County, it has been more 

 troublesome than for many years, farmers losing all the way from 10 

 to 50 per cent, and in some cases their entire crop of wheat. 



The Hessian fly, now spread over our entire wheat-growing regions, 

 was not serious in the northern part of the State, partly on account of 

 extreme dryness in that portion during the spring and early summer, 



«Now recognized as Lyctus unipundatu^ Hbst., common to both continents. — 

 F. H. C. 



