184 



EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 



3-4 EDWARD VII., A. 1904 



to destroy them. For this purpose, the best remedy in my experience is the poisoned 

 bran mash, which is remarkably ejQficacious. In making this material, which is equally 

 useful in field practice as in gardens, it is best to dampen some of the bran slightly 

 with water containing a little sugar. After mixing thoroughly, add the Paris green 

 little by little, stirring all the time. If Paris green is added to the bran when it is 

 perfectly dry, it will, owing to its weight, sink at once to the bottom when stirred. 

 Half a pound of Paris green is sufficient to poison 50 lbs. of bran, although double 

 this amount may be used. Bran should be added to the mixture until it will crumble 

 easily and run through the fingers without fidliering. It may then be distributed 

 through or along the edge of an infested crop or rnay be applied to land either around 

 or between plants, or a row may be run close to drills by means of a Planet Jr. seeder, 

 or a similar implement. For such crops as tomatoes, cabbages, tobacco, &c., a collar of 

 paper put around the stem at the time of planting, will prevent the destruction of 

 many plants. Seedlings must be planted so that none of the leaves hang down and 

 touch the ground. The same protection is provided in a more permanent manner, but 

 at greater cost, with strips of tin. Convenient rings may be made from old tomato 

 and fruit cans by throwing these into a bonfire and melting off the tops and bottoms 

 and then splitting the sheet of tin which is left down the centre. This not only makes 

 a good protection against cutworms, but disposes of a class of rubbish which often 

 accumulates to an inconvenient degree. 



The Sugar-beet Webworm (Loxostege sticticalis, L.j. — When in Manitoba last 



July, my attention was drawn 

 by Mr. Hugh McKellar to re- 

 ports which appeared 'u\ the 

 newspapers of swarms of a 

 small blackish caterpi liar 

 which had appeared at Brandon 

 and other points east and west 

 of that city, and which after de- 

 vouring its natural food plants, 

 had wandered in armies to new 

 fields in search of food. The 

 Fig. 9.-The Sugar-beet Webworm : grst notice of this insect in 



o, moth ; It, caterpillar ; c, d, segment of T)-— ^^r.c^ ^ j- nr x 



all enlarged. 1903, came to me irom Mr. J. 



(Chittenden, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.) R. McMullen, of Melita, Man., 



who stated that two years before this he had noticed enormous numbers of small motiis 

 among his wheat in the month of June. He writes on June 15, in a letter addressed 

 to the Department of Agriculture for Manitoba, jvhich was referred to me, an inter- 

 esting account of an excessive occurrence of the caterpillars during '1902, as f ollov,\'5 : 

 * I thought no more of these moths until last sitmmer. I had ploughed a field of stub- 

 ble in June and sowed it in Brome grass, of which I got a good catch. There was a 

 lot of pigweed in it, and, when the weeds were about four or five inches high, I was 

 surprised to see thousands, yes millions of v>'orms, eating up the pigweed, making a 

 complete job and killing it entirely. On thirty acres they ate every pigweed, but very 

 little of the grass or any other plants. They started to work on the north side of the 

 field and travelled south. Nothing would turn them. When they came to the tub 

 where the horses are watered, they crawled up the sides and fell into the water by 

 thousands; even when they came to the house, they crawled up the w^lls and clean 

 over the house. These caterpillars were from three-quarters of an inch to an inch 

 long, greenish in colour and with yellow stripes down the back and sides for the full 

 length of their bodies. On the back the stripes were widened out or dotted in ten or 

 a dozen places. When they reached the garden, they ate nothing except beets, although 

 they tasted some other vegetables but did not eat much of them. Thcj^ came to a big 

 field of wheat just headed out, but did it no harm. In four or five days they were all 



