GREEN SOLDIER-BUG ON ORANGE TREES. &3 
crease of the pest. Adjoining this old field was a wild orange grove 
in a dense forest. Many of the sour stumps had large sweet buds, 
neither the buds nor sour trees giving any signs of the red rust until 
the winter following the clearing, and after a crop of pea-vines had been 
grown among the trees. Now the trees in this wild grove are just as 
much damaged as in the old field adjoining. Another case I will men- 
tion, and not trespass further on your patience. Five miles distant is 
the grove of L. Merritt, a wild grove budded. The buds are six years 
old and ought to be bearing heavy crops, but an occasional bloom is all. 
The trees have been in an unhealthy and “die back ” condition for sev- 
eral years. When visiting his grove in the fall of 1881, I told him I had 
some trees in the same condition and was inclined to think the Green 
Bug was the cause. Since that time he has persistently hunted the bug, 
whipping it out of the large trees with poles, and killing wherever 
found; also he stopped planting peas. I have just visited his grove and 
found but two twigs damaged, and could not find a specimen of the 
bug. The trees have changed so remarkably in this grove that it was 
past recognition. Instead of a dense erép of dead twigs all over his 
grove, as at a previous visit, the trees had nearly doubled in size, and 
had a very large, healthy growth of branches in place of the dead twigs. 
I hear his trees are now in profuse bloom. Ido not think that washes 
will do much damage to the bug. Very strong whale-oil soap rarely 
kills. Whale-oil soap, 1 pound; kerosene oil, 1 pint; water, 12 pints ; 
sometimes kills when sprayed over them, nearly always when immersed. 
Pure kerosene kills, but not always instantly. 
The Green Bug has a parasite. I do not know what, but I frequently 
find their shells with the inside devoured. Last winter I buried a num- 
ber to see if plowing under would kill them. In ten days none were 
dead; in three weeks 20 per cent. were dead, nothing remaining but the 
shells; in six weeks all but one were dead, empty shells remaining. 
The living insect 1 put in a bottle with a little earth over it, hoping to 
find the parasite, but unfortunately in about ten days the bottle was 
broken, the Green Bug was dead, the empty shell as in the other in- 
stances. 
At present the insect is very rare here; if found at all, generally on 
the mustard plant or a weed locally known as nightshade. Yesterday, 
while showing a lemon tree to some visitors, I found some of the twigs 
drooping and remarked it looked like the work of the Green Bug. One 
was found under a leaf close to his work. I send you one of the shoots. 
If at any time you may consider the subject of sufficient importance to 
send a trained observer in the field, L willbe happy to see him here and 
place every facility af his disposal. 
With apologies for the length of my letter.—| JAMES FRANKLIN, West 
Apopka, Fla., January 31, 1883. 
