STATE HORTICUI.TUKAL SOCIETY. 73 



THE LEAF-ROLLER. 



President Smith. One of the objects of our summer meeting is to 

 discuss small fruits. There are many insects which prove injurious to 

 small fruits and I would like to have the experience of some of those 

 present in regard to the leaf-roller, which has done a good deal of 

 damage in some sections. 



Mr. Oliver Gibbs, Jr. being called upon came forward and said: 



Mr. Gibbs. About all the information I could give you is as to the 

 destructive character of the pest, and so far as that is concerned I 

 think you already have about all the information you want. I hadi 

 experience with the leaf-roller two years ago; they were all over my 

 strawberry beds and I had three or four acres planted. On one-half 

 acre they destroyed the whole crop. I mulched my strawberries with 

 fine straw taken from an old ice house. In the spring I noticed very 

 early that the birds were digging over that straw. I examined and 

 found where they had searched for these insects, going some six inches 

 down in the straw sometimes. The following season I discovered 

 hardly an}- signs of the leaf-roller, and I think the birds took them. 

 I do not know of any artificial remedy whatever. It is the most des- 

 tructive pest I think, that ever infested strawberry plants. 



Secretary Hillman here referred to remedies recommended in the 

 report of the Missouri Horticultural Society, exterminating the leaf- 

 roller by mowing and burning the leaves in mid summer, etc. 



Mr. Busse. Do they deposit their larvae in the ground in the spring ? 



Mr. Gibbs. The insect hatches out in the spring and is about a 

 sixteenth of an inch in length, and commences its work after warm 

 weather begins. It weaves a web consisting of little bars, across the 

 stem or leaf of the plant, and the leaves commence to fold together. 

 It weaves its way along until the leaf is entirely folded together and 

 after it is closed no poison can touch it unless it is strong enough to 

 kill the plant. Ordinary solutions of Paris green have no effect. It 

 has been said that the burning of the fields in the fall or spring has 

 proven of benefit. I think Prof. Forbes reported to our Society that 

 they had tried it in Illinois and it was the only eff'ectual remedy they 

 had ever used. The worm changes its form and becomes apparently 

 lifeless; it eats its way through the leaf, drops off and buries itself in 

 the rubbish or mulch on the ground. There seems to be a period when 

 it lies among the vines or rubbish, when they can be destroyed by 

 burning; but if not destroyed it remains near the surface of the soil 

 and comes out in the spring. Of course it changes its form to a fly 



