56o NEW JERSEY STATE AGRICULTURAL. 



cess. They act as a stimulant to growtli and when run in along 

 the rows close to the plants seem to exercise a positive effect as 

 well. On heavier land they do not seem to act as well, and there 

 the carbolic acid emulsion was advised. In every case taking out 

 and destroying the infested plants was urged. This does not of 

 course save anything for the present season, but it prevents the 

 maggots or larv<T from coming to maturity and in that way 

 lessens the supply for next year. In taking out infested plants in 

 such cases a trowel or similar .tool should be used that all the 

 maggots attached to the outside of the bulb may be secured. 

 Simply pulling the plant out usually results in leaving a portion of 

 the niPggots in the soil to make their way to another plant or come 

 to maturity as the case may be. Growing onions in a section 

 infested by the maggot demands constant attention, prompt action 

 and a looking to the future effect of whatever action is taken. 



Potato beetles were, on the whole less abundant during the 

 early part of the summer than usual ; but that must be taken as a 

 very general statement, for in some places they appeared in 

 normal numbers. After mid-summer they increased rapidly and, 

 as in general, the potato crop was beyond reach of injury, no 

 destructive action was taken they swarmed over everything 

 eatable for them late in the season. The hibernating brood is, 

 therefore, unusually large and promise-: to make up in activity 

 next year what was missed during the early days of 1904. 



One of the interesting features of the season was the almost 

 entire absence of the com zvorm, Heliothis arrniger, in localities 

 where usually it is a pest so universal that growers take it as a 

 matter of course and unavoidable. From several points in Glou- 

 cester and Burlington counties where sweet corn is grown for the 

 city market in great quantity, farmers advised me of this unusual 

 fact : some claiming the total absence of the insect as against an 

 80 per cent, infestation in previous seasons. This put me upon 

 inquiry and I found that almost throughout the State the insect 

 was less abundant than usual ; but that in the southern half of the 

 State the difference was uniformly more apparent. Grocers and 

 marketmen with whom I spoke confirmed this general conclusion 

 and there seems little doubt that the winter of igo3-'o4 was 

 unusually hard on this insect and destroyed a large percentage of 

 the hibernating pupa^. Just how this desirable result was ob- 

 tained is less clear. 



