200 GRAPE CULTURE AND 



vineyard at night, or one person taking a brightly burning 

 torch and walking through the rows, while another beats the 

 vines, will cause the insects to fly into the flames and thus 

 get scorched. 



The Grape Vine Fidia, a small ashy gray beetle, about the 

 size of a common house fly, sometimes becomes very destruc- 

 tive to the foliage. Sulphuring, and when they become too 

 numerous, hand-shaking early in the morning, when the in- 

 sect is still dormant, into a screen of the shape of an inverted 

 umbrella, with a slit or space on one side to enable the oper- 

 ator to push it under the vine, are about the most common 

 remedies. 



The gray cut worm and the wire worm, a worm about 

 two inches long with a hard covering of brownish yellow color, 

 sometimes materially injure the young shoots. The wire 

 worm works mostly underground, while the cut worm will cut 

 off the young shoots above the ground. Handpicking is 

 about the only remedy; the cut worm is generally found un- 

 der the loose clods at the base of the vine, while the wire 

 worm is found mostly on the suckers below and the young 

 shoots of the grafts where they are below the ground. 



There is also a black, longish beetle which will bore into 

 the buds and wood, making a round hole, but I have not 

 found it very numerous or very destructive. A steel blue 

 beetle, very active, is also destructive to the young shoots, 

 and sometimes a large worm, similar to the common tobacco 

 worm, will feed upon the foliage. The leaf .folders common 

 in the East I have not yet observed here. 



The Rocky Mountain locust, or grasshopper, has visited 

 certain sections of the State, and is very destructive. I have 

 seen a vineyard of one hundred acres in Knights Valley kept 

 completely bare by them one summer ; but in the next they 

 had entirely disappeared. It is very difficult to guard against 

 them, though the remedies advised by Prof. Riley can no 



