﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 101 



In addition to the foregoing in illustration of the insect's injuries 

 in America even during a most favorable year for vine growth, our 

 horticultural literature has given further evidence of the same char- 

 acter. Mr. F. R. Elliott, for instance, one of our most prominent hor- 

 ticultural writers, and ex-Secretary of the American Pomological 

 Society, has had much to say during the ysar about the acknowl- 

 edged feebleness and failure of many varieties, and among them the 

 Eumelan, Wilder, Catawba and Isabella. But he attributes the trouble 

 to injudicious methods of propagation, and lays the blame to the door 

 of the nurserymen, who, he asserts, in their avidity for gain, have sent 

 out wood that was immature and lacked vitality. His ideas have been 

 very generally, and, I think, successfully repudiated ; and, in fact, his 

 argument ought to apply to all varieties — those which succeed as well 

 as those which fail ; and while in some few instances there may be 

 foundation for them, I cannot help thinking that the work of Phyl- 

 loxera has had much more to do with the general feebleness and fail- 

 ure of such varieties. 



It must not be forgotten that the character of the soil has very much 

 to do in furthering or impeding the injury from Phylloxera, and that 

 the successful growth of susceptible varieties — as of the Delaware 

 around Warrensburg — may often be accounted for by the sandy nature 

 of the soil ; for the insect cannot multiply in such a soil, to the extent 

 it can in one less yielding and more apt to form fissures, crevices and 

 passage-ways** 



KAXGE OF THE INSECT IN AMERICA. 



Under this head, after showing that the insect is indigenous to the 

 United States east of the Rocky Mountains, I wrote, last year, as fol- 

 lows : "I have myself found it in Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, 

 Michigan, Ontario, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Mary- 

 land, and have good evidence of its occurrence in Connecticut, Dis- 

 trict of Columbia, North Carolina, Texas, and as far south as Florida. 

 It doubtless occurs in all the intermediate States." Its occurrence in 

 Connecticut can now be affirmed ; for I found it around Hartford, and 

 upon being informed by Mr. H. T. Bassett, of Waterbury, that he had 

 certain vines which were sickly, I repaired thither with him, and the 

 very first roots obtained revealed the enemy and its work. Yet 



•As bearing on this point, in addition to what I have said in previous years, Mr. Chas. Teubner, 

 of Hermann, who, in a communication read at the last annual meeting of our State Horticultural 

 Society, reports most grapes as doing well, and insects less injurious than usual, remarks that "in 

 locations where the soil was sandy, grapes did best in every respect, and it is my opinion that to use 

 sand freely in a vineyard (where it can be got) will materially aid in diminishing disease, and bruiging 

 the vines into a flourishing condition . " 



