J^EPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST AND BOTANIST. 205 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



Stonewall district. From Stonewall to Teulon it was reported that very few farms 

 had escaped entirely, and in many cases the loss was serious. Mr. Arch. Woods, wha 

 lives about 2^ miles south of Teulon, had one field of 23 acres of wheat on summer- 

 fallow three-quarters destroyed. The worms were said to clear the ci'op out com- 

 pletely, leaving the field as black as before it was sown. Mr. C. C. Castle lost 15 

 acres in the same way, and Mr. Mudd and other farmers in the same locality suffered 

 to a similar extent. The caterpillars were almost full grown on May 19. Unfortu- 

 mately no specimens of these cutworms were sent to the Division, so the species could 

 not be identitfed with certainty. The Eed-backed Cutworm (Carneades ochrogaster^ 

 Gn.) was abundant in Manitoba last summer, the caterpillars attacking turnips and 

 many other low plants. The Rev. W. A. Burman reports injuries by this species at 

 Deloraine, and Mr. A. W. Hanham informs me that this was the commonest moth at 

 Winnipeg in the season of 1900. I have never actually detected this species attacking^ 

 wheat ; but it is a well known pest of Indian corn, and it is quite possible that it may^ 

 have been the culprit on this occasion. 



GRASSHOPPERS IN MANITOBA. 



About May 20 reports began to come in on the abundance of various kinds of 

 grasshoppers in Manitoba, and by the end of the month the injuries had assumed 

 serious proportions. An urgent invitation was received from the Provincial Minister 



of Agriculture for me to visit the districts and 

 advise farmers. Unfortunately previous official 

 engagements rendered this impossible until the end 

 of June, when I proceeded to Winnipeg, and in 

 company with Mr. Hugh McKellar, the Chief 

 Pig. 5.— The Rocky Mountain Locust. Clerk of the Department of Agriculture, visited a 



portion of the infested district. Through the 

 courtesy of the Canadian Pacific Railway free transportation was provided to any 

 part we wished to visit. Accordingly, leaving Winnipeg on July 2, we proceeded to 

 Stockton on the Glenboro' Branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and then drove 

 through the countrj^ worst infested round towards Wawanesa, Treesbank and Aweme, 

 where we spent the night, and were hospitably entertained by Mr. Criddle, and where 

 we received much valuable information and saw most interesting specimens of natural 

 history objects. Leaving there the next morning, all too soon, we passed on to 

 Douglas, another point where much harm had been done by locusts. In the after- 

 noon a circuit was made round this place for several miles north-east and south-east. 

 The next day I went on towards Brandon. The places in Manitoba where consider- 

 able injury was reported to have been done by locusts were along the line of the 

 Canadian Pacific Railway from McGregor past Melbourne, Carberry, Douglas^ 

 Brandon and Oak Lake to Routledge, and south by Pipestone, Lauder, Hartney. and 

 following the Souris river to Glenboro' and thence north-easterly to McGregor. At 

 the time of my visit the grasshoppers were enormously abundant, but all farmers 

 agreed that there was not at that time one where there had been one hundred a few 

 weeks previously. I found every one well acquainted with the habits of the insects 

 and the chief methods of fighting them. The article in my report for 1898, where all 

 the best remedies are given, had been read carefully, but the greatest credit is 

 certainly due to the Provincial Minister of Agriculture and his energetic Chief Clerk, 

 Mr. McKellar, who had spared no effort in distributing information through the press, 

 by holding meetings and circulating leaflets of use to farmers in meeting this out- 

 break. The farmers had responded promptly and had followed instructions well, by 

 destroying the young insects both by burning them at night when they had collected 

 on rows of straw spread across fields for the purpose, ploughing down stubble fields, 

 the use of hopper-dosers, large numbers of which could be seen in all parts of the 

 country, and by poisoning the insects with a mixture of bran and Paris green, ^here 



