24 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



The Fall web-worm, Hyphantria textor, has been very common in this county. I 



know two localities where every black ash — of 

 which there was a considerable number of trees 



^vvrK — w as completely defoliated. Not a vestige of 



I ' -1 leaf was left. The trees were literally en- 



>£/ webbed from the top to the root. Seizing the 



\^ webby fabric on the trunk it could be pulled 



off in strips reaching to the lower branches. 



The orchard fruits in this country have 



been unusually free from insect injury. In 



1895 fruit was a failure, owing to the heavy 



rtff.'; ' t^kjjk \ / frost late in May. Its scarcity caused every 



*" ■"■■■■■ ¥\'%^r-fp^^^: Y h apple that escaped to be gathered carefully. 



" —. ' , , ,. ., None was allowed to remain on the ground, 



tig. 8. a, worm; o, chrysalis; c, moth. „. . .. „ , . , "? , 



lhis year all wormy fruit, and indeed much 



that is not wormy, is left to rot, so abundant is the crop and so insignificant the price for 



it. Hence the insects will develop without let or hindrance, save from their natural 



enemies. The abundance of this year's crop points to increased need for spraying next 



year. 



Failure op Pea Crop. 



It would be out of place here to speak of fungal and bacterial injuries to crops, etc., 

 to which I give more attention than to insects, but I may refer to the failuie of the pea 

 crop in Prince Edward County. Some farmers there find it profitable to raise garden 

 pease for sale to the seedsmen. This year the crop failed ; the diseased plants looked as 

 though they were affected by a parasitic fungus. Mr. Craig, the Dominion Horticul- 

 turist, kindly sent me a large number of specimens. On many of them I found fungi, 

 all probably saprophytic, not disease producing, but produced in the diseased or dying 

 tissue, and, what is more noteworthy, on many, in fact nearly all the roots I examined, a 

 minute Nematode or Anguillula-like worm. There were not any nodules such as the 

 rose anguillula produces on the roots of that plant in the green-house. Much damage 

 is done to plants in the Southern States by anguillulfe, but it has been thought that the 

 winters in our latitude are too severe for any organism of this class to survive in injurious 

 numbers. The failure of the pea crop in that county needs further investigation. I 

 believe it was due to several causes, one of which was the presence of these nematodes. 



Parasitic Fungi. 



Speaking of fungi naturally leads one to think of the work done in a new and im- 

 important field, that of artificially controlling injurious insects by vegetable parasitism. 

 Colonies of silk-worm and of the honey bee are occasionally devastated by a muscariine 

 and pebrine and foul-brood respectively, which are fungal and bacterial parasites. It is 

 not unreasonable to suppose that simdar parasites may be discovered capable of artificial 

 cultivation which may be introduced among gregarious insects as grasshoppers, army- 

 worm, etc., and used to control them effectively. Prof. Forbes, of Illinois, has experi- 

 mented extensively upon inoculations of the Chinch bug. 



Laboratory experiments have been conducted in Cornell Agricultural Experiment 

 Station by Mr. R. H. Pettit, under the direction of Professor Atkinson, with various 

 parasitic fungi upon several different kinds of insects. Dr. Roland Thaxter has done 

 plendid work on the Entomophthorece,. Prof. Snow, of Kansas, Prof. Webster, of Ohio, 

 and others, have also labored in the same field. So far, while many of the laboratory 

 experiments have been successful and promising, the work in the field has not yet, to 

 my knowledge, reached very satisfactory results.* 



* Since writing the above I am informed by Dr. Bethune that at the Buff v'o meeting of the Economic 

 Entomo ogists, August, 1896, Prot. Webster, of Wooster, Ohio, stated that farmers in th* districts of that 

 State badly infested with the chinch-bug had eagerly obtained and us- d wpecimens of the pest artificially 

 inoculated with Sporotnckum to distribute where chinch-bugs would come in contact with them, and 

 thereby contract and spread the disease. He reported satisfactory and encouraging results. 



