14:4 AKNUAL REPORT. 



one of the most reliable applications ever discovered for all kinds 

 of bark-lice and scale insects. Small cabbage patches may be saved 

 from destruction, by constant care and attention, but in large 

 fields, that are raised for the city markets, it is almost impossible 

 to fight the worms successfully. The consequence is that cabbage 

 is very scarce in these markets and the price per head three or 

 four times as much as it was a few years ago. There is reason 

 to hope, however, that nature will come to the rescue of the 

 cabbage grower before long, in the shape of parasites or some 

 insect malady. Of the latter, there is indeed already indication. 

 In the January number of the American Naturalist, Prof. Forbes 

 gives an account of a disease which carried off" large numbers of 

 the latter broods of worms in Illinois, and Prof. Riley has also 

 observed among them ^hat he calls "black rot." We can but 

 hope that it will prove epidemic. 



THE COLORADO POTATO BEETLE. 



This once destructive pest has scarcely "put in an appearance"^ 

 throughout the west for the last year. Entomologists have not 

 decided to what agencies to attribute its remarkable scarcity, but 

 whether due to peculiarities of the season, to the multiplication of 

 natural enemies or to the prevalence of some disease which escaped 

 observation, its absence was a great boon to the potato grower. 



THE coDLiiTG MOTH. {Carpocapsa pomonella, Lifin.) 



The apple crop was unusually short and of poor quality through- 

 out the northwest during the past summer, and there was great 

 complaint of the "apple worm" by which, in ninety-nine cases out 

 of one hundred, is meant the larva of the above named moth. No 

 apple grower or apple eater needs an introduction to the fat, pink- 

 ish-white larva with black or brown head, which so often takes 

 the fairest fruit upon the tree and gives to cider a more than desir- 

 able richness, unless the apples are assorted with the utmost care, 

 and necessitates so much extra labor on the part of the house- 

 keeper in preparing "apple sauce." The parent of this worm is so 

 shy that it is seldom recognized even by those who suffer most 

 loss from the gnawings of its progeny. It is a small and beauti- 

 ful species of moth of a gra}' color, with numerous wavy stripes of 

 bronze crossing the wings, and a large spot of burnished bronze 

 near the tips. It cannot be allured by lights or sweetened fluids, 



