ENTOMOLOGY 163 



The pea crops should be harvested early, a little on the green 

 side, so that the pods will not shell out before removal from the 

 field; threshing should be done as soon as possible, and all refuse 

 from the machine should be swept up and burnt. If any weevils 

 are noticed in the peas, the crop should be put into bins or barrels 

 and fumigated with carbon bisulphide in the manner recommended 

 for the Bean-weevil. Peas that contain weevils, even though they 

 are dead, should not be sown, as the plants grown from them will 

 be stunted owing to the lack of food material in the pea; a consid- 

 erable proportion would probably not grow at all, owing to the germ 

 having been devoured by the beetle. The remains of the crop, not 

 taken from the field, should be raked up and burnt. If every pea- 

 grower would adopt these methods we should soon be rid of the 

 pest as the beetle does not attack any other plant. 



Pea Moth. The parent moth is small, less than half an inch 

 in expanse of wings, and of a dull, slaty-gray color. It lays its eggs 

 on the growing pods of peas; the caterpillars soon hatch out and 

 bore their way into the pod, where they feed upon the young peas, 

 consuming many of them and filling the space with a mass of excre- 

 ment. When full grown the worms leave the pods and form their 

 small oval cocoons below the surface of the ground. 



Where there is reason to expect an attack, the pea vines should 

 be sprayed as soon as blossoming is over with a liquid wash of one 

 pound of soap in twenty-five gallons of water in which has been 

 thoroughly mixed four ounces of Paris green ; the spraying should 

 be repeated a couple of times at intervals of a week or ten days. 

 The object is to poison the young caterpillars when they are eating 

 their way through the pod. 



Sowing early varieties as early as possible in the season has been 

 found useful, the pods being too far advanced to be injured when 

 the worms appear. Very late sowing is also recommended in order 

 that the blossoming may not take place till after the moths have 

 ceased egg-laying. 



An important point is to plow or dig deeply in the fall any 

 piece of land where infested peas have been grown in order to bury 

 the cocoons and prevent the moths coming out dn the spring. All 

 unripe pods should be burnt, as they may contain worms, and peas 

 should not bo grown again upon or near the same piece of ground 

 the next season. 



Pea Aphis. This large green plant-louse has during recent 

 years become extremely destructive to the vines of peas. In some 

 parts, where large acreages were devoted to this crop for canning 

 purposes, the annual loss was estimated at many millions of dollars, 

 three-fourths of the crop being in some instances destroyed. The 

 usual remedies for plant-lice have already been referred to under 

 "Aphis," but they are of little value when contending w5th an at- 

 tack on a very large scale. A method that has been found effective 

 is to sow the peas with drills and wide enough apart for a culti- 

 vator to work between the rows, instead of the usual broadcast plan. 

 As soon as the plants are seen to be infested boys arc employed to 



