The Meadow Plant Bug. 15 



Where rotation is impracticable or undesirable it will be 

 more difficult to secure complete eradication and careful tests 

 of treatment based on the habits of the insect are necessary 

 to determine the most successful methods. 



It is clear that burning over of meadows if sufficiently dry 

 in autumn or early spring so as to destroy the eggs would be 

 very effective but there are of course many objections to this 

 treatment so that it can not be urged as sufficient. In some 

 seasons probably there would be no time when the grass would 

 burn sufficiently close to the ground to destroy any large part 

 of the eggs and there is the danger if burned too deeply that 

 the stand of grass will be injured. This method especially for 

 the conditions prevailing in Maine does not seem to promise 

 much. Where burning is practiced, it should assist. It would 

 be worth while to compare results in fields so treated. 



Early or late cutting of the crop may have some effect 

 on the number of eggs laid in a field, an early cutting before 

 the insects are mature for example depriving them of their 

 usual form of food, the heads of grass, may reduce egg de- 

 position but whether to such an extent as to warrant any spec- 

 ial change in the usual practice as to time of cutting can only 

 be determined by further study. 



The application of any form of insecticide or of special 

 kinds of fertilizers does not seem to offer any very practical 

 relief and the use of hopper-dozers or mechanical devices for 

 their capture have not been tested; nor do they have much 

 promise. 



Finally there is the important consideration of the spread 

 of the insect into adjacent fields or farms or to more distant 

 points and for this the facts secured furnish a very sure foun- 

 dation for effective control. Knowing that practically the only 

 opportunity for such wider distribution is by carriage of hay, 

 attention to the disposal of any such material introduced where 

 the insect is not present, in some way to avoid scattering of 

 eggs where they can hatch where suitable food plants will be 

 available for their subsistence, will serve to exclude them. 



