64 



BUSHBERG CATALOGUE. 



INSECTS. 



[Our limited space onljr permits us to briefly refer to 

 a few of those insects which we liave found most injuri- 

 ous in our vineyards and to some of tlie l)eneHcent in- 

 sects which the svape-fxrower will meet with. Both 

 are, however, for the most part unnoticed in any of our 

 standard treatises on the jiiape-viiie, and for the facts 

 regard ins them ^^e are indebted to Prof. C. V. Riley's 

 valuable " Entomological Reports."! 



The Grape Phylloxera. 



(Phylloxera vastatrix). 



Among the insects injurious to the grape-vine 

 none have ever attracted as much attention as the 

 Phylloxera, which, in its essential character- 

 istics, was unknown when the first edition of our 

 little work on American Grape-vines was written. 

 The gall-inhabiting type of this insect, it is true, 

 was noticed by our grape-growers many years 

 ago (especially on thie Clinton), but they knew 

 nothing of its root-inhabiting type. Even Fuller 

 — who informs us that in Mr. Grant's celebrated 

 grape nurseries (as far back as 1858) the men 

 were in the habit of combing out, with their fin- 

 gers, the roots of young vines to be sent off, in 

 ■order to get rid of the knots — never mentions 

 anything of this, nor of any root-infesting insect, 

 in his excellent Treatise on the Cultivation of the 

 Native Grape, thotigh IG pages are devoted to its 

 insects. In the spring of 1869, M. J. Lichten- 

 stein, of Montpelier, first hazarded the opinion 

 that the Phylloxera, which was attracting so 

 much attention in Europe, was identical with the 

 American Leaf-gall Louse (first described by Dr. 

 Asa Fitch, State Entomologist of New York, by 

 the name of Pemphigus vitifuJim;) and in 1870, 

 Prof. C. V. Riley succeeded in establishing the 

 Identity of their gall insect with ours, and also 

 the identity of the gall and root-inhabiting types. 

 The correctness of his views is confirmed by the 

 subsequent researches of Professor Planchon, Dr. 

 Siguoret, Balbiaui, Cornu and other scientists in 

 France; lately also of Professor Roessler, in 

 Klosterneuburg in Austria. 



After visiting France in 1871, and then extend- 

 ing his observations here, some of which were 

 made in our Bushberg vineyards. Professor Riley 

 first gave us every reason to believe " that the 

 failure of the European vine (T^. Vinifera) when 

 planted here, and the partial failure of many hy- 

 brids with the European Viiiifcra are mainly ow- 

 ing to the injurious work of this insidious little 

 root-louse; also, that some of our native varieties 

 enjoy relative immunity from the insect's at- 

 tacks " — M. Laliman of Bordeaux, having pre- 

 viously noticed the remarkable resistance of 

 certain American vines in the midst of European 

 vines dj/ing from the effects of Phylloxera. The 

 importance of these discoveries to grape culture 

 cannot be too highly appreciated. The French 

 Minister of Agriculture commissioned Professor 

 Planchon to visit this country in order to study 

 the insect here — the harm it does to our vines, or 

 the power of resistance which these possess. His 

 investigations not only corroborated Prof. Riley's 

 conclusions regarding the Phylloxera, but gave 

 him. and through him the people of Europe, a 

 knowledge of the quality of our native grapes and 

 wines, which dispelled much of the prejudice 

 against them that had so universally prevailed 

 heretofore. 



Prof. Riley's recommendations to use certain 

 American vines, which he found to resist Phyll- 

 oxera, as stocks on which to grow the more sus- 



ceptible European vine, induced us to send a few 

 thousand plants and cuttings, gratis, for testing, 

 to Montpellier, France, and the success of these 

 resulted in an immense demand for the resistant 

 varieties. With the spread of the Ph3-lloxera to 

 other countries, including South America, Aus- 

 tralia, South Africa, nearly every part of the 

 world which deals in or grows European vines, 

 the demand for these resistant stocks has contin- 

 ued and they have been propagated to a large ex- 

 tent almost exclusively for this purpose not only 

 in this country but in France and elsewhere. It 

 is characteristic of Prof. Riley that, though the 

 first requests for such resistant stocks came to 

 him, and though he was urged, as we know, by 

 prominent growers to join in a business enter- 

 prise, the possibilities of which he fully recog- 

 nized, he declined every such offer, and has never 

 profited financially from his discoveries, prefer- 

 ring the honor of unselfish devotion to science to 

 material gain. 



To discuss this subject as it deserves; to give a 

 history of the grape Phylloxera — the progress 

 and extent of its ravages — the experiments made 

 to prevent these; to review the influence which it 

 had and probably will have on American grape 

 culture, would far exceed the scope of this brief 

 manual. The literature of this subject would fill 

 a respectable library. We can here merely men- 

 tion a few facts, and give some figures, which 

 may enable the grape-grower to recognize and 

 observe this minute, j'et so important insect; and 

 we refer those who desire full and reliable in- 

 formation to Prof. Riley's Entomological Re- 

 ports, from which we cull largely. It will be 

 understood that the figures, which are from the 

 same reports and which were made by Prof. 

 Riley from nature, are geneallj^ very highly 

 magnified, and that the natitral sizes are indi- 

 cated by dots within circles, or by lines. 



The following figure of a grape-leaf shows the 

 galls or excrescences produced by the gall- 

 inhabiting type of the insect. On carefully open- 

 ing one of the galls, we find the mother louse 

 diligently at work surrounding herself with pale 

 yellow eggs, scarcely (.01) the one-hundredth 

 part of an inch long, and not quite half as thick. 



Under side of Leaf covered with Galls, iiat. size. 



She is about .04 inch long, of a dull orange color, 

 and does not look unlike an immature seed of the 

 common purslane. The &^g begin to hatch, 

 when 6 or 8 days old, into active little beings. 



