INSECTS INJDRIOUS IN CRANBERRY CULTURE. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The method of cultivating cranberries is so radically different from 

 that employed for any other crop, and the character of the soil on 

 which the plants grow is so unlike that on the ordinary farm, that it 

 is not surprising to lind the insect enemies more or less peculiar in 

 character and the methods of dealing with them unusual. 



The general practice is to cover the bogs with water during the 

 winter, and this excludes from them quite a variety of insects that 

 might otherwise prove troublesome. In a few localities where winter 

 flowage is impossible, some insects that are not usual on other bogs do 

 injur}", and these must be dealt with as similar species would be treated 

 if affecting upland crops. With a bog properly located, proper]}'- laid 

 out, and a suitable amount of water supply to cover it promptly in 

 case of necessity, the cranberry grower need fear none of the insect 

 pests so far known as injurious to the crop. 



Roughly speaking, the species of insects injurious to cranberries 

 are divided into such as affect the foliage, such as attack the stem, and 

 such as injure or destroy the fruit. Under the first head come the 

 leaf folders, like the black and the yellow head cranberry worms, the 

 tip worm, and the different spanworms which appear in variable 

 numbers each year. Under the second head comes the stem girdler, 

 which eats the bark of the stem or runners and thus kills the plant 

 beyond the point of attack. Under the third head comes the berry 

 worm and the various grasshoppers and katydids that eat of or into 

 the fruit. 



INSECTS THAT ATTACK THE FOLIAGE. 



THE BLACKHEAD CRANBERRY WORM, 



{Eudemis vaccinia na Pack.) « 



This is perhaps the best known and most uniformly injurious of all 

 cranberry insects and is locally known as the " vine worm" in Massa- 

 chusetts and as the "fireworm" in New Jersey. As a larva (worm) 

 it is a deep, rather velvety, green, slender little caterpillar, not over 



" Also mentioned in entomological writings as Anchylopera and Rhopobota. 

 178 9 



