REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST AXD BOTANIST 169 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



As this minute insect is capable of causing enormous losses in the wheat crop, 

 should it increase in numbers, it seems well to repeat the remedies which have given 

 the best results. 



Remedies. — The remedies for the Wheat Midge depend largely upon the way it 

 passes the winter. The methods which have given the best results are as follows: — 



(1) Deep ploughing directly the crop is carried, so as to bury the larvae so deep 

 that the flies cannot work their way out through the soil. 



(2) The burning of all chaff, dust or rubbish know.n as ' screenings ' or ' tail- 

 ings ' from beneath the threshing machines, as these contain many of the larvse which 

 are carried with the crop. If fed to chickens or domestic animals, this should be done 

 in a place where none of the puparia can escape destruction. 



(3) Clean farming, including the cutting of all grasses along the edges of 

 fields and the ploughing down of all volunteer crops found in wheat fields before winter 

 sets in, so as to destroy an autumn brood where one exists. 



(4) The cultivation of such varieties of wheat as experience has shown are least 

 affected by this insect. 



Cutworms in grain. — There have been rather extensive injuries by cutworms in 

 grain fields in some parts of Manitoba and the North-west Territories during 1905. 

 The worst of these were in the Edmonton district and other points in Northern 

 Alberta, and in Northern Manitoba. Very few siDecimens were sent with these com- 

 plaints of injury, farmers for the most part failing to see the importance of forward- 

 ing samples of what they consider such a well known pest. This, however, is far from 

 being the case, and it would help most materially in many instances toward getting 

 prompt and useful advice if specimens were sent. There are a great many kinds of 

 cutworms, all of which vary somewhat in their habits. The points of value to a 

 specialist when advising farmers how. to avoid loss, are the exact identity of the species 

 at work, because the habits, the ordinary food plant, usual time of attaining full 

 growth, when power to do injury to crop ceases, and many other points which bear on 

 the choice of the most practical remedy to be recommended, are already known for 

 many species of cutworms. A glance at specimens of the insects is of far more use 

 than the longest descriptions of the cutworms by those who are not used to describing 

 insects. From such specimens as were sent, it is evident that the greater part of the 

 loss in many different kinds of crops was due to the Red-backed Cutworm (Paragrotis 

 ochrogaster, Gn.). This is a very wide-spread species, occurring from Nova Scotia to 

 British Columbia. The caterpillar, when full grown, is nearly two inches long; it is 

 very voracious, and will attack almost all succulent vegetation. It is the species which 

 has been the cause of by far the greater part of the loss in grain fields of the West 

 during recent years. 



The following letters, chosen from many received, indicate the nature of the in- 

 festation : — 



' June 10, Eegina. — Cutworms, mostly P. ochrogaster, are making havoc in 

 wheat and oat crops up the Edmonton line.' — T. N. Willing. 



' June 12, Edmonton. — I send specimens of worms that have been destroying the 

 grain about a month. They seem to be most destructive on summer-fallow, although 

 they are now working on spring ploughing and new breaking. They have completely 

 destroyed about ten acres of oats and barley for me, and partly destroyed some wheat. 

 They have destroyed grain over a large part of this country, some having lost from 

 one-third to one-half of their crop. They are now crawling over the ground by the 

 thousand and are working on grain that is ten inches high.' — John N. Kerri. 



' June 12, Winnipeg, Man. — I have just returned from a week's farmers' insitute 

 work in the Swan River and Dauphin districts in Northern Manitoba. At Dauphin 

 a number of the farmers were complaining that considerable damage had been done 



