THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. i I 



tioii is to do good and not cause unnecessary con ternation. Let mo hope- 

 that others may be induced to study the microscopic plague and thus not 

 only assist to fill the gaps yet occurring in its natural history, but help us. 

 to become better masters of it. Only those who have witnessed the foai-ful 

 havoc it has made abroad — where in three years it caused a loss of 25,U00,- 

 000 francs in the single department of Vaucluse, France, — can fully a]>pre- 

 ciate its importance and its power, under flivorable circumstances, {<> do 

 harm. 



I must remind those who live outside of Missouri, that my observa- 

 tions in this country have been confined to difterent parts of this State,, 

 and apply more especially to this portion of the Mississippi Valle}-, 

 The insect occurs, however, very generally over the country east of 

 the Mississippi river, even into Canada; and there are strong indica- 

 tions that it produces similarly injurious effects elsewhere. To give a 

 single example : According to the records, most of the vineyards on 

 Staten Island which were flourishing in 1861, and which were composed 

 principally of Catawba, had failed in 1866, and Mr. Gr. E. Meissner, of Bush- 

 berg, who then owned a vineyard on that island, informs me that he had 

 noticed the nodosities, and that the roots of the dying vines had wasted 

 away.* I cannot conclude without publicly expressing my indebtedness to 

 Messrs. Lichtenstein and Planchon, of Montpellier, France, for the cordial 

 and generous manner in which they gave me every facility for studyini;- the 

 insect there, and witnessing experiments in the field. 



* Since the above was written, I tiave listened to an essay on Grapes, by Mr. P. Manny, of Free- 

 port, Stephenson county, Illinois. In this essay, which was read before the Ulinois State Horticul- 

 tural Society, the writer states that his Delaware, lona and Salem vines lose their lower roots. He 

 attributes this loss of roots to the tenacity of the soil (though more likelt owing to unseen roor-lii-f>. 

 and has remedied it in a measure by gratting on Clinton roots . 



