24° The Canadian Horticulturist. 



THE STRAWBERRY LEAF-ROLLER. 



SHORT time ago a sensational paragraph appeared in the 

 Ottawa papers, stating that the strawberry crop in Prince 

 Edward Co. had been destroyed by " a new blight/' 

 Enquiry from growers has shown the reports to be un- 

 founded. A destructive insect is at work, however, as is 

 shown by the following very interesting letter from Mr. 

 Alfred Brown, of Picton, Ont. I quote it in order to draw 

 attention, in the absence of Dr. Fletcher, to a sometimes very injurious insect 

 to strawberry plantations : 



" Dear Sir, — Your favor re strawberry blight came to hand Saturday night. 

 After shipping our berries this a.m., I spent balance of day with growers, and 

 could find no trace of damage by blight. There are, however, a great many 

 failures owing to the severe winter, some losing all their strawberries and most of 

 their raspberries. Fruit trees generally are damaged more or less. Our three 

 acres of strawberries are not more than 20% of a crop : Wilson, Williams and 

 Beder Wood nearly all gone, and Crescent damaged, but the best of the lot. 



I found a grower near Picton having what seems to be a serious pest — a 

 Leaf-roller. He has four acres of 1894 planting, which look as if fire had been 

 over them. His plants set out in 1895, are not quite so bad, but the insect is 

 quite plentiful and gives the rows the appearance of having been affected by a 

 severe drought. I send by this mail a sample of leaves from this yard, also a 

 sample of leaves affected with spot. A neighbor with only one farm between 

 has no insects worth mentioning ; another a short distance away has his Wilson's 

 badly affected with the " Leaf-roller." 



Our three acres of raspberries are the best show for a full crop we have had 

 thus far. One acre, set this spring, has been damaged to a considerable extent 

 by cut-worms, specimens of which were sent to Prof. Fletcher, yesterday. Very 

 little hay in the county. Spring crops generally good." 



As it is important that this pest should be destroyed at once and that 

 growers should be on the look out for it, I cannot do better than give Dr. 

 Clarence Weed's description of this insect, as found in his excellent work 

 " Insects and Insecticides " at page 88. The description, life history and 

 remedy is given as follows : 



" The Strawberry Leaf-Roller — Phoxopteris Comptana. — This is a small, 

 brownish caterpillar that folds the leaflets of the strawberry by bringing the 

 upper surfaces together and fastening them by silken cords, and feeds upon their 

 substance till they look brown and scorched. It is sometimes exceedingly 

 destructive, and has been considered by some entomologists as the most injur- 

 ious of the insect enemies of the strawberry. It probably occurs in nearly all 

 the Northern States and, is also found in Europe, where, however, it does not 

 prove troublesome. It hatches from eggs laid in spring upon the strawberry 



