100 MAINE STATK COLLEGE 



judging from the badly infested specimens of apple twigs received 

 from David Crane of HonKon. Those interested in this insect 

 will find it considered in Exjit. Sta. Rept. 1888, p. 157. 



The Three-toothed Aphonus, accused of cutting corn in our last 

 report, has been fully convicted of the charge the past season, by 

 Mr. C. V. Manley of Auburn. He says, "T found this beetle 

 which I send you, in a hill of corn with his head in a cut in the 

 side of a stalk that had begun to wilt." 



Mr. E. W. Merritt of Houlton, reports that he keeps the plant 

 lice on his gooselierry bushes in check by removing the twigs 

 bearing curled leaves in the fall. We have received insects 

 during the past season from Illinois and California sent for deter- 

 mination by tie editor of the Maine Faimer. Investigation of a 

 species of mite called by us the Two-spotted Mite has been con- 

 tinued. This mite has done considerable damage the past season 

 in the greenhouse at the college, and w^e found it had almost 

 entirely destroyed a patch of German Wax Beans in our garden. 

 Should it prove able to injure to any extent out of door plants, its 

 capabilities of doing damage woul:l be greatly enhanced. As we 

 were doing laboratory work on the mite, it might have been carried to 

 the beans on our clothing. We wish to study the coming season, 

 insects affecting currant and gooseberry bushes, and will be 

 pleased to receive specimens from all parts of the State. 



We received from Mr. Ira Porter, Houlton, Maine a bunch of 

 clover, Trifolium medium, L., in which the heads had assumed 

 the form of conpound umbels. This was interesting as a con- 

 firmation of the belief by botanist, that the head, a kind of 

 inflorescence found in the clover, is an umbel with the axis of 

 inflorescence and the pedicils, shortened. Mr. Henry Sprague of 

 Charlotte, for whom we examined some mosses last season in 

 reference to their value as food for swine, reports that he fed 

 during the winter about six barrels of reindeer moss, four of 

 hypnum splendens, two of sphagmim cymbifolium, to three svnne. 



As the pigs all had other food he had no definite way of telling 

 how much nutriment they got from the mosses. Thinks they liked 

 either of the others as well as the reindeer moss. Thinks all had 

 a constipating effect, which he overcame by liberal doses of sul- 

 phate of magnesia (salts). 



Mr. W. H. Burgess of Monroe, says, that he grafts the Arctic 

 and Lombard plums into the common Pomgranite and avoids the 

 black knot, which has proved so destructive to plum trees in general. 

 We don't know how thoroughly the experiments were tried, but 



