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pest comes from, aud I have no remedy to oifer. Should the warm weather and hot 

 sun fail to drive them away, i think they will take both the corn aud cotton. I 

 would be glad to have your opinion as to the origin or parentage of the little pest and 

 how long they will be likely to remain with us, so that I may give it to tne press for 

 the benefit of the farmers. — [J. L. Fookes, Era, Cooke County, Tex., April 10, 1890. 



Reply. — I beg to acknowledge the receipt of yours of the 10th inst. and also the ac- 

 companying specimens. As I wrote you on the 11th inst., the " Lady-bug" is the 

 enemy of the grain-lice and not its uarenti An examination of the specimens which 

 you sett shows that they belong to the species known as the spotted Lady-bug 

 (Megilla ma'sulata). 



Nothing more need be said in answer to Mr. Heare. The life history of one of the 

 species of grain-louse will be treated at some length in the forthcoming annual report 

 of this Department, a copy of which will be sent you when published. The lice may 

 do considerable damage with you this spring, but there is no available remedy. Ordi- 

 narily they are killed off by parasites before attaining injurious numbers, although 

 occasionally, as last year in the States of Michigan. Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois and 

 Ohio, the parasites did not get the upper hand until later in the year than usual, and 

 the result was that the crop was souiewhat damaged. In reply to your question as 

 to where the lice come from, we may state that they are always with you, but usually 

 in such small numbers as not to be noticed. The past open winter has evidently 

 been favorable to their early and excessive multiplication. — [April 17, 18'JO.] 



Another Letter. — I saw in your reply to Mr. J. L. Fookes, of Era, Tex., that you 

 asked him to report to you the extent of damage done by the insects that are on our 

 wheat. The wheat in Cooke, Grayson, Collin and Denton counties, and a few other 

 places where I have been, is suffering from their ravages, and it is hard to tell how 

 long they will remain. They are on my wheat and seem to be increasing fast, and up 

 to yesterday it was a very great mystery to my mind how they originated and accu- 

 mulated so rapidly. I walked into the wheat to make a close investigation, anrl 

 within an hour I discovered the great mystery which has been bothering us so long, 

 and it is the simple little bug known all over the United States as the Lady-bug, a 

 small red bug with a shell covered with black specks. She can be seen all over the 

 field depositing little eggs resembling a clear grain of sand. I find these are soon 

 hatched in the warm sun, and the little bug is very small with a transparent ski u. It 

 begins to suck the sap from the green wheat, which soon changes its color to a dark 

 green, and as it advances in age and size it takes on the perfect shape of a Lady-bug 

 with her shell aud wings off. Next I find him a little larger and a little older with a 

 dark streak along his back ; next, larger in size, while the streak has developed into 

 a set of wings, very tine iu texture. 



We had a freeze a short time ago that perhaps killed most of the little rascals, aud 

 the ones now on the wheat I have no doubt hatched since the freeze. I can not s.ay 

 just now whether they will turn to Lady-bugs or not, but I can convince any man in 

 a few minutes that the Lady-bug is the cause of their existence. I opened aud counted 

 in one Lady-bug over thirty eggs. I tind in all the counties that the wheat is damaged 

 a great deal worse in valleys near timber or brush, or near where the rocks are numer- 

 ous on the surface, and in sections of the black land where very large rank weeds have 

 been growing. Wherever the Lady-bug has had shelter they have been noticed by all 

 with whom I have talked to-day as being very numerous for the past year or two. The 

 bugs have already destroyed iu this county (Cooke) thousands of acres of wheat, and 

 I find the Lady-bug laying her eggs on some corn that is up. Have also found the 

 little Toxoptera gramhinm, as you call them, on the coru, too. 



The most simple aud efi'ectual remedy I know of just now is this : Take corn-meal 

 and scatter it broadcast over the wheat field, oue-half bushel to 10 acres of wheat, so 

 as to toll the little birds on the fields, aud when once there they will eat the I^ady- 

 bugs aud rid the wheat of the terrible pest. Please give this to the press at once, so 

 the farmers may save what wheat remains, if possible. — [F. P. Heare, Vernon, Wil- 

 barger County, Texas, April 6, 1890. 



