70 



THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



A UAS3 OF MISTAKES. 



I findtlio following letter in the Prairie Farmer 

 of Feb. 9, 1867, from a Nebraska correspondent: — 

 Remedy for the Boiiek, 



Eds. PnAiniE Fahmeu: — As I see that a remedy for the 

 borer worm is inquired for, I send you mine, which you 

 can publish, if you think it useful. For the last eight 

 years, I have practiced hauling hickory wood on my farm 

 every year, and placing it where it would attract the 

 borer moth, and then burning it with the worm in it be- 

 fore the end of two years. I think that I have thus kept 

 the worms in subjection, and that it will take but a small 

 quantity of the wood to keep them so, if the requisite 

 pains are taken to burn it before the worms come out. 



Sbort as this communication is, it contains no 

 less than three mistakes, as follows: — 



1. None of the different kinds of borers that are 

 known to infest Hickory wood could live in Fruit- 

 trees; neither would the Beetles, produced from 

 these boring larvEC, ever lay their eggs upon fruit- 

 trees. They know better than that; for if they 

 did so, the larvse hatched froin those eggs would 

 perish. 



2. There is no "Borer moth" known to breed in 

 Hickory. All the Borers of the Hickory produce 

 Beetles and not Moths; though the common Borer 

 of the Peach and that of the Red Currant do pro- 

 duce Sloths. 



3. The " worms'' never come out of Hickory as 

 "worms" but as Beetles, into which the "worms" 

 have previously changed. 



Destroying the boring-worms in Hickory wood 

 will have no more efi'ect towards diminishing the 

 number of boring-worms in Fruit-trees, than one 

 Farmer's butchering a lot of hogs will diminish the 

 number of his neighbor's sheep. Those that de- 

 sire fuller information on this subject, can refer to 

 my Paper on Borers, in the Practical Ento- 

 mologist, Vol. I, pp. 25—31. B. D. w. 



HOP-GSOWING IN THE WEST. 



There is a prospect that, for several years, a deal 

 of money may be made by growing Hops in the 

 Valley of the Mississippi. The Hop Plant-louse 

 seems to have generally established itself within the 

 last three or four years, in those Eastern districts 

 where Hops were formerly grown to a very large 

 extent, and to be utterly ruining the crop. The 

 probability is, as I have already suggested, (Prac- 

 tical Entomologist, II, p. 41,) that this in- 

 sect has been recently imported from Europe; and 

 in that case it will probably continue its ravages for 

 a considerable "length of time in the East, before it 

 finally works its way to the West. Hence, for 

 many years to come. Western Hop-growers will have 

 a great advantage over their Eastern competitors. 

 The following extracts from a letter, whijh ap- 

 peared in the Countri/ Grntlrman of Jan. 31,1867, 

 will give a very good idea of the amount of damage 

 done by this insect, wherever it has once become 

 firmly established. 



In the year l.'if)4, hops were attacked by lice so as to 

 nearly destroy the crop, but some picked early and got a 

 fair yield. But perhaps the experience of my first neigh- 

 bor to the south would be a fair sample of many others. 

 Goo. B. Brewster had a new yard of two acres ; the culti- 



vation was perfect; it was a model yard. He harvested 

 over one ton (2,0U0 lbs) of hops in IHOS, which he sold for 

 30 cents per pound. In the spring of 180(1 he hired two 

 other yards, an acre or more in each. In his own yard 

 he harvested 200 lbs. In one yard that he hired he got 

 $J5 worth, and the other he plowed up and sowed to oats, 

 getting less than 500 lbs. where he might reasonably ex- 

 pect 5,000 lbs. The roots nearly all died in the winter. * * 

 There seems to be a prospect that this branch of agricul- 

 ture will soon become extinct, unless the causes which 

 have proved so detrimental can be removed. 



Irasburgh, Vt. Z. E. Jamesos. 



In the year 18G6 a few acres of Hops were plant- 

 ed in the immediate neighborhood of Rock Island, 

 111.; and the owner, who is an experienced English 

 Hop-grower, informs me that the plant flourishes 

 there, and that he has noticed no Plant-lice on it. 

 It may not be amiss to caution Western men, to be 

 careful how they import the roots or sets from in- 

 fested Districts in the East, The Plant-louse of 

 the Hop passes the winter in the perfect state ; and 

 a single female Louse, accidentally mixed in among 

 a lot of sets, might propagate the breed here to an 

 indefinite extent, before it was noticed by any one. 



B. D. w. 



TH0irSAin)-I.EGG£O WOBMS. 



[From a letter from James H. Parsons, of Franklin, 

 New York.] 



My Onion crop last summer did very poorly. Instead 

 of 40' bushels as I expected, I had but about 12 bushels. 

 The onions were small or medium size, and when I pulled 

 them, I was surprised to find that they had no roots, or 

 at least very short ones, not more than half an inch in 

 length. I was unable to account for the phenomenon, as 

 I found but few onions affected with the "maggot;" and 

 yet I noticed that the roots of every onion were covered 

 with little "thousand-legged worms." (See Answer to 

 Geo. W. Robinson, in December No. of Practical Ento- 

 mologist, p. 34.) It did not occur to me then that these 

 worms had done the mischief, as I had never seen them 

 before on living vegetables — only on dead seeds in the 

 ground, that had failed to germinate. They were from i 

 inch long to nothing — some of them so small as to be 

 scarcely visible. Thesmaller ones were white, the larger 

 ones light brown, their bodies very lively and flexible, 

 and their legs long as compared with the diameter of 

 their bodies, say 1-lOth of an inch in length, their bodies 

 being considerably less than 1-lCth inch in diameter. 



It occurred to me, last summer, to send you some of 

 these worms, but I concluded that thev were harmless 

 creatures and it would not be worth while. I will send 

 you some as soon as I can find them in the Spring, if you 

 do not receive them from some other source. They may 

 prove to be a great pest. I presume every square, rod of 

 of my garden has hundreds of thousands, if not millions, 

 of these worms, little and big. 



Remarks by B. D. W. — The thousand-legged 

 worms on your onions, were most probably the same 

 species which I have described in the pass.age re- 

 ferred to above. Mr. Robinson mentioned that 

 they occurred of various sizes, and that the young 

 ones were, as you describe them, whitish. Accord- 

 ing to Dr. Wood, to whom I forwarded a specimen, 

 my species is undistinguishable from his lulus cir- 

 ridi'o-cinctus. In fact, although the body when re- 

 cent is brown, as I have described it, when dried 

 up it is always banded with blue on each segment. 

 Dr. Wood's name must, of course, take precedence 

 of mine. I shall be glad to rcceiYe the specimens 

 promised by Mr. Parsons. 



