577 
Tak PHYLLOXERA.—The following article from the Bulletin des 
Sceances de la Societe d’Agriculture de France, 1872, p. 514, may be of 
interest to some of our vine-growers as showing the good effect of an 
application of soot for the destruction of the grape-vine root gall-louse. 
However, not having tried the soot ourselves, we can only give the ex- 
perience of others, and add that Dr. Erni, formerly chemist to the De- 
partment of Agriculture, in a letter from Berne, Switzerland, has also 
highly recommended the use of soot for the same insect. 
M. Rogier, mayor of Poule Gard, exhibited to the central society of agriculture the 
results obtained by the use of soot in the treatment of vines attacked by the phylloxera. 
A young vine attacked by this insect in 1869 was treated with soot put at the foot or 
root of each stem in the quantity of a half kilogram, (about one and ‘one-tenth of a 
pound.) The vine recovered. The following years all the stems which composed it 
were smoked with soot. This vine has a remarkable vigor, while the neighboring vines 
were dead or seriously injured. All vines treated with soot, used as a preservative 
compost, are healthier, although surrounded with diseased vines. 
We give the above extract for what it is worth, and hope some of our 
correspondents will try soot and report the result to the Department, as 
we have scarcely any of these destructive insects in our own immediate 
neighborhood. In reference to this insect, the grape-root gall-louse, the 
Department has received a very interesting letter from Mr. George W. 
Campbell, of Delaware, Ohio, in which he expresses his opinion that 
the aphis (pemphigus) affecting the leaves and that upon the roots are 
not identical. He says: 
I have since then found in two instances what were doubtless eggs of the phylloxera 
(root-gall-louse) upon diseased roots the same as those within the galls, but solitary, 
and not in clusters as in the galls. This, I think, settles the question, that the aphides 
infesting the roots are propagated under ground, upon the roots, and that they are 
probably not the same as are propagated in the galls upon the leaves. 
Mr. Campbell also sent specimens of the roots injured, together with 
numerous root gall-lice clustered upon them, but although carefully ex- 
amined with the microscope we failed to find any eggs whatever upon 
the roots sent. These roots, however, have been planted just as re- 
ceived with the insects upon them in a flower-pot and placed in a large 
wardian case in close contact with other pots containing healthy vines, 
in order to find out if the insects will pass from one vine to another 
during the winter, and if the healthy roots will next season be infested 
with either root or leaf gall-lice. We give Mr. Campbell’s remarks 
merely to stimulate further inquiry into the identity of the two insects, 
as many naturalists have stated them to be merely varieties of the same 
insect. In France it appears that flooding the vineyards at certain 
seasons to drown the insect out has been recommended, but this plan 
even if successful could only be carried out in level places, and could 
not be adopted in side-hill vineyards. 
THE COLORADO POTATO BEETLE.—In reference to this insect, Dory- 
phora 10-lineata, our correspondent in Dodge County, Nebraska, sends 
the following : 
As soon as the soft bugs or grubs are hatched in the early part of the spring, I har- 
row the patch with a slanting (backwards) tooth harrow; the beams knock off the 
grubs and the teeth bury them in the soil, from which they have not power to rise. 
When the plants are over 6 inches high I use a two-horse four-shovel corn-cultivator 
having hung sticks of round fire-wood, 3 feet long, by ropes transversely across the 
frame about a foot and a half in advance of the shovel-blade ; the dangling sticks 
knock off the grubs, and the shovels effectually bury them. 1 do this in the middle of 
a hot, dry day, and have kept two acres completely clean by going through once a 
week, thus keeping down the bugs and the weeds at the same operation. Two to 
three hours’ work of this kind will accomplish more than a dozen children in a whole 
day with sticks and pans, according to the old way. 
