220 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS. 



64 VICTORIA, A. 1901 



' ^anaimo, B.C., August 13. — 1 send you a few notes on Peridroma saucia. The 

 moth was very common round my house in Juno, and I captured several, t do not 

 remember to have taken it in British Columbia before. The first caterpillars I saw 

 were in a field of potatoes at Boat Harbour, on July 15. I did not recognize the 

 caterpillar. It is not one of our common British Columbian cutworms. Since July 

 15, of course, everybody has heard of it, and the damage done has been very consider- 

 able. Mangels, potatoes, turnips, <%c., have been bored into, wherever near the surface 

 of the ground. The caterpillars have travelled a little when food was scarce, and they 

 have stripped nettles, thistles and bracken just outside fences. They have also 

 attacked the second growth of clover, and have climbed fruit trees when planted near 

 garden stuft'. The larvfB are now pupating, and some moths have already appeared. 

 This, I think, establishes the fact of a double brood. I collected at willows, and 

 presume I should have taken some of the moths, had they hibernated as such.' — Rev. 

 O. W. Taylor. 



' Nanaimo, B.C., August 25. — P. saucia is now coming out of pupa state in con- 

 siderable numbers. I have no doubt about two broods now, and I fear an attack of 

 caterpillars must be expected in spring.' — G. W. T. 



' Kaslo, B.C., August 16. — I made a tour through" some ground which I knew had 

 been infested with cutworms, but found that they had all pxipated, so I mailed you 

 last night a box of pup^. These were so thick in the ground that every spade would 

 turn up from three to nine puppe. These caterpillars when young were blackish-gray 

 on the back and lightish stone colour on the legs and belly, with a row of four yellowish 

 spots on the back. After the last moult the general colour is greenish stone, and the 

 four spots fade considerably, in some specimens they are almost imperceptible. They 

 vary much in colour and size. If I am correct in my supposition of the moth of these 

 pests, it has not appeared here before in any nvimbers. I had none of the moths prior 

 to last spring. The last visitation of cutworms was in 1892.' — J. W. Cockle. 



' Armstrong, B.C., August 18. — I notice the chrysalids from the cutworms in 

 constantly increasing numbers among my potatoes.' — Donald Graham. 



' Agassiz, B.C., August IS. — The cutworms are gone, but the potatoes, mangels 

 and peas have been seriously injured. In some cases, as the mangels, our crop is 

 destroyed. The peas were lessened 50 per cent, and potatoes are defoliated to a con- 

 siderable degree, but the absolute injury will not be known until they are harvested.' — 



ThOS. a. SlIAIiPE. 



' Chilliwack, B.C., September 3 — Cutworms have been devastating our pea crop 

 and roots. However, I have only lost about 15 acres of peas, so I consider myself lucky; 

 but some of those I have got har^^ested are shrivelled and very small.' — G. Maxwell 

 Stuart. 



' Okanagan Mission, B.C., August 20. — Caterpillars did a great deal of damage 

 here this year, but copious irrigation proved a pretty good method of controlling 

 them.' — J. T. Davies. 



jm summing up the insect injuries of the year in British Columbia, Mr. R. M. 

 Palmer Avrites, as follows : — 



' ximongst insect pests occurring during the year the Variegated Cutworm has 

 made a record of damage far exceeding anything known in the province. You have 

 so much data from Mr. Anderson on this that it is unnecessary for me to deal with 

 the matter at length. The crops which suffered most severely were potatoes, tomatoes, 

 cabbage and allied plants, peas and clover. The cutworm seriously injured the ajiple 

 crop in some districts, and also defoliated or cut off many young shoots of fruit trees. 

 To prevent the cutworms from climbing the stems of fruit trees, banding them with 

 a strip of the common sticky fly paper proved very effective, and when the Paris green 

 and bran mixture was deposited near the base of the trees, immense numbers of the 

 pests were destroyed. A capital plan in using the poisoned bran for this purpose, is 

 to cover the mixture with pieces of sacking or other material, under which the cut- 



