SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION LIBRARIES 



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FOOD PLANTS. 



The larvae and pupae, as well as tlie adults, feed on all sorts of 

 succulent vegetation, such as weeds and garden vegetables, and are 

 apparently not particularly fond of the apple, much preferring the 

 more succulent annual plants. Mr. J. G. Jack reports that he found 

 the adults feeding on the young and tender shoots of the apple, near 

 the ground, by which I suppose he means the watershoots, for cer- 

 tainl}^, after very careful and repeated observations in an orchard 

 which was so infested as to be nearly ruined, I failed to find any 

 indication of the feeding of larvae or adults on apple. The injury, 

 at any rate, in this direction, to fruit and shade trees is practically 

 not worth considering. 



REMEDIES AND PREVENTIVES. 



The destruction of the insects themselves is difficult and in general 

 impracticable, because the larvae and adults feed on all sorts of veg- 

 etation and are very widely distributed. The adults, also, are too 

 active and quick of flight to be successfully reached by caustic 

 washes ; and spraying to destroy the early stages is ordinarily out of 

 the question, because it would necessitate extending the treatment to 

 all surrounding vegetation, and, as the adults are strc^ng flyers, even 

 this would give no absolute security. 



The limiting of the amount of foreign vegetation about and in 

 orchards and nurseries is an excellent precaution, and little damage 

 may l)e anticipated where the ground between the trees is kept clean 

 and constantly cultivated. The larvae and pu.pae under these condi- 

 tions will be starved out. The orchard in which the writer first 

 studied this insect, and which was so thoroughly infested as to be 

 seriously injured, was one which had been neglected for a number 

 of years and was full of weeds and succulent undergro^wth, furnish- 

 ing conditions under which an unusual multiplication of the Ceresa 

 had taken place during a number of years. Surrounding and better 

 kept orchards showed little, if any, damage. 



Vigorous pruning in the fall or winter should be given trees which 

 have been cut up to any extent, and this with clean culture should 

 reduce the insect to small numbers. It is possible that some good 

 could^ be accomplished by planting trap plants between the rows of 

 trees, such as beans or <jther similar summer crops, which could be 

 sprayed with the stronger mixtures of the kerosene and soap emul- 

 sion when the larvae became numerous, or about the first of July, but 

 the more promising method is the cultural one already described. 



C. L. Marlatt, 

 First Assistant Entomologist. 

 Approved : 



James Wilson, 



Secretai-y. 



Washington, D. C, May 10, 1897. 



