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along Delaware it did a very considerable amount of injury, making its 
appearance just as the grain was ripening. This is one of those 
creatures against which we are more or less helpless, and the only 
advice that I was able to give to the farmers was to harvest the wheat 
just as soon as they possibly could. The advice was followed very 
generally, and a conservative estimate placed the damage done at 
about 10 per cent of the amount of the crop. A very large proportion 
of these larvee were parasitized, principally by a Tachinid; but the fact 
that so large a proportion was parasitized did not, so far as I have been 
able to ascertain, lessen the injuries sustained by the farmers in the 
least. I have been puzzled to know what peculiar local condition 
caused the sudden increase of this species. It is something which the 
farmers themselves say they had never seen before; but this of course 
means nothing, for I know that the moth is one of those that is moder- 
ately common every year. In other parts of the State where the moth 
is equally common there was no unusual increase. 
Raising onions for seed, for sets, and for market, is quite an industry 
in Cumberland County, and heretofore nothing in the way of insects 
has troubled the crop. One of the largest growers in that county, and 
at the same time one of the best farmers in the State, had familiarized 
himself with the insects that were elsewhere most troublesome, and 
had been keeping a very close lookout for the onion maggot, which was 
known to be injurious in other portions of the State. In May he wrote 
me that he had found a very considerable percentage of the sets planted 
for bulbs to be infested by the maggots, and that not he alone, but his 
neighbors as well, suffered equally. He asked an explanation of how 
this insect could have appeared in such numbers, and over such an 
extent of country, when it had not been previously known anywhere 
in the vicinity. Of course I failed to answer the question, since I could 
only suggest that probably the insect had been present in the vicinity 
in small numbers, and had not been noticed; but had found unusually 
favorable conditions for its increase during the present year. Heroic 
remedies were at once adopted; plants were taken out where they 
showed signs of attack and were destroyed; in addition to that the 
soil was turned away from the tubers, kainit, at the rate of 500 pounds 
to an acre, was applied, and the soil turned back again to the rows. 
Two weeks later when I visited at the field, no trace of the onion mag: 
gots could be found; nor did they again make their appearance at any 
time later, or up to the present time. 
It is rather a remarkable fact that not only the insects should have 
made their appearance in such numbers where they had not been 
known previously, but also that they should have been so completely 
destroyed by the measures adopted.: There was one fortunate cireum- 
stance connected with the outbreak, and that is that all the onion- 
growers in the vicinity were intelligent men, who fully appreciated the 
danger, and who did not hesitate a moment in adopting the remedies 
