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field and keep anywhere from a dozen to twenty chickens picking up 

 their living among the sweet potatoes. The practice is said to be 

 eftective, and that is all that can be asked. Few of the farmers raise 

 their own chickens; but just when they need them they buy them iu 

 the Philadelphia market and keep them running in the sweet potato 

 field until the insects have been cleared up; then they either fatten and 

 kill them for their own use or ship them to market again. 



Truckers, of whom there are a very great number in southern New Jer- 

 sey, have lost heavily on their tomato crops, chiefly from meteorological 

 conditions, but largely also by the corn worm [Heliothis armiger). 

 Early tomatoes were scarce, owing to the heavy rains at the time that 

 tbe plants set the first blossoms. These were blighted and the plants 

 recovered slowly from the setback received, and almost all of the sec- 

 ond set proved to be infested by worms. One source of profit, there- 

 fore, for our farmers was practically cut off entirely, because early toma- 

 toes are usually counted on as a money crop. 



The onion maggot appeared in Cumberland County early in the sea- 

 son and showed itself in large numbers on the plantations. The same 

 uieasures that were so successful last year were again adopted ; that 

 is, the earth was turned back from the onion rows, kainit was ajiplied 

 in a heavy dressing in the furrow, the earth was turned back again, 

 and in three days thereafter not a maggot could be found in the fields. 

 This is the second season in succession when this practice has proved 

 entirely successful. It has checked injury by killing the larvse, and it 

 has stimulated the plants to such an extent that they overcame the 

 injury that had been already done, and matured the fruit. I think I 

 am justified in claiming value for this method of treatment; the more 

 so, as in several other cases, farmers who used heavy dressing of this 

 material in sirring have been at a great advantage as compared with 

 their neighbors, so far as insect injury to corn was concerned. 



The remarkable invasion by the larva of the clover-leaf weevil, which 

 I have now observed for four years in succession, started again during 

 the present season, and as in all the previous seasons the larvje have 

 been swept away before maturity by the fungous disease. This disease 

 appears to act irrespective of weather. It seems to nuike no difference 

 whether the season is wet or dry, and possibly this might be a good 

 subject to experiment with on some of the other insect pests. 



Blister-beetles have again made their appearance in considerable 

 numbers in some few localities and have attacked <iuite a variety of 

 plants. Beets seem to have been rather the favorites during the pres- 

 ent year, and after them egg-plants and i^otatoes have been injured. 



A trouble which was brought to my attention for the first time this 

 year, but has probably existed to some extent for several years past, is 

 the potato stalk-borer, the larva of Trichoharis triyiotatus. I found 

 them early in the present month in Mercer County, and in the fields 

 that I examined there was scarcely a vine that was not infested by any- 



