1893.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 323. 



DEPARTMENT OF EGONOMIG ENTOMOLOGY. 



Edited by Prof. JOHN B. SMITH, Sc D., New Brunswick, N. J. 



A Few Notes on Cranberry Insects. — The cranberry industry is one of 

 the most important in parts of Massachusetts and parts of New Jersey, 

 and the cultivation of this fruit is extending to the West. It has already- 

 become of considerable importance in Wisconsin, and plantations have 

 been started in the State of Washington. Recently, the horticulturist of 

 the Wisconsin Station has published a bulletin on the insects and diseases 

 of the cranberry, based almost entirely on work done at the New Jersey 

 Station by the botanist and entomologist there. In August last I had an 

 opportunity of conversing with Mr. Goff, at Madison, Wis., and he in- 

 forms me that in some respects there seems to be a little difference in 

 habit of some of the insects, and particularly in the case of the Teras 

 vacciniivoratia. In New Jersey and on Cape Cod it is well known that 

 this insect is dimorphic, and that there is a fall brood, which is slate colored 

 and lives through the Winter, and that there are two Summer broods, 

 both of which are orange colored. The interesting point seems to be, 

 that this orange colored brood is entirely wanting in Wisconsin, and that 

 only the slate colored form exists there. The evidence upon which this 

 statement is made, is not entirely beyond question, but it is very likely 

 indeed to prove correct, from what we know of the actions of other in- 

 sects in similar climatic conditions. 



A point of some interest in connection with the new bogs that have 

 been started in Washington is, that I have received from that place speci- 

 mens of the "Fire-worm," the larva of Rhopobota vacciniana, the insects^ 

 being transmitted to me through the agency of the secretary of the Amer- 

 ican Cranberry Growers' Association. Investigations made at my request 

 show that the vines which were set out on the Washington bog were ob- 

 tained from Massachusetts, and there is almost no room for doubt that the 

 vines so set out contained the eggs of this insect, which are laid in the fall 

 and do not hatch until well along next Spring. If, as is usual, the plants 

 were collected any time after mid-Summer, or early in the fall, and were set 

 out in fall or in Spring, there would be no difficulty whatever in the hatching 

 out of the larva from the eggs in Washington. I have no information as to 

 how widespread this insect is in its new quarters, but I have not the shadow 

 of a doubt that it will make itself at home in the new region, undergoing 

 perhaps some little modifications, and that it may be even more injurious 

 in its new home than it is with us in the East. Referring to the matter of 

 modification, it is a matter of some interest that even in the specimens 

 sent me, all the markings stand out very much more brightly than they 

 do in any Eastern specimen that I have ever seen. It would pay the 

 cranberry growers in this new region to make a very careful investigation 

 of how far this insect has already spread. It is scarcely likely that it ex- 



