7!IS NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



hero tliis year than lasi. ^^■lle^ it attackod iioarlv lliroe fonrtlis 

 of the crop. Our season lias been extri'iiiely wet. and I think 

 that both of the tent-caterpiHars and aphids have been kiter 

 than nsnak but now thev are very abnndant. Jnne 5. Canker 

 worms [? 1' a 1 e a e r i t a v e r n a t a] are even worse than hist 

 year, and vciy little effort is being made to cheek them. They 

 have attacked forest trees badly in some sections, seeming- to 

 favor the elms and spreading from them to neighboring 

 orchards. The appletree and forest tent-caterpillars [C 1 i s i o- 

 c a m p a a ni c r i c a u a and ('. d i s s t r i a] are very abnnd- 

 ant on apple and cherry tri'es, but during a long drive yesterday, 

 1 saw nests only in a])ide and cherry trees. This is a great con- 

 trast to last year, when they worked on nearly everything. They 

 are now crawling along the fences, sidewalks and roads, look- 

 ing for ]»laces in Avhicli to spin up. Our tields (we have some 60 

 acres scattered around in diff'erent places) look uniformly bad 

 from attack by the Hessian tly. They were sowed beginning 

 Sep. 20 and ending a week later. Our wheat is as near a com- 

 plete failure as it is possible to be and yield anything. We may 

 get 5 or G bushels to the acre, but we shall probably plow the 

 greater part of it. Both asparagus beetles are present here, 

 but the 1:2 spotted one [C r i o c e r i s 12-p u n c t a t a] is rai-e. 

 The coninum form [C r i o c e r i s as p a r a g i] is so bad that 

 it is almost impossible to find any asparagus on the market 

 except that which is covered with its eggs. June 11. I am 

 mailing a number of apricot twigs infested with what is appar- 

 ently a peach twig moth. [C e n o p i s d i 1 u t i c o s t a n a 

 Walsni.. kindly determined by Prof. C. H. Fernald. subsequently 

 was bred from these twigs.] The pale striped flea beetle [S y s- 

 t e n a t a e u i a t a] observed by us working on seedling apple- 

 trees last year, is now attacking sugar beets. June 21. The 

 small beetles [X o t o x u s a n c h o r a] sent herewith are very 

 numerous around the roots of wheat. In our seed bed we have 

 several varieties of wheat, all of which were badly injured by 

 the Hessian lly excej.t a clieck row of - Dawson's golden chaff".'' 

 not a single straw of which is down. This check row was sown 



