86 
One of the most serious outbreaks of the corn billbug, Sphenoph- 
orus sculptilis, occurred in a field of timothy of three years’ standing, 
containing 35 acres, which was broken during March of the present 
year, and on the 13th of May was planted with corn. June 6 the 
owner came to me with specimens of this beetle, claiming that the 
corn over the entire field had either been killed outright or hopelessly 
ruined from attacks of this pest. <A visit to the field a few days later 
revealed a state of affairs that had not been overdrawn by its owner, 
with the exception of a few acres along one side, over which it was | 
represented the timothy had been killed out by some unknown cause 
and redtop had taken its place. Here the injury had been very slight, 
but through the remainder of the field the damage was almost total. 
The owner had noticed that much timothy the year before whitened 
and died, but had not learned the cause. On examination I was able 
to find a considerable abundance of the timothy roots that had been 
hollowed out, clearly by the larvee of this insect. While slight inju- 
ries by this pest are not uncommon in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, I 
never before saw so large a field of corn so thoroughly and effectually 
destroyed by these insects. In this case the only thing it seemed pos- 
sible to advise was the replanting of the field between the old rows, 
leaving the remnant of the first planting to engage the insects dur- 
ing the remainder of their life, and thus, as it was hoped, to keep 
them away from the second planting. 
Onion thrips, Zhrips tabaci, were excessively abundant in some 
localities last year. In order to learn something about the winter 
habit of this insect frequent visits were made to onion fields where 
it occurred in greatest abundance during the fall of 1899. These vis- 
its were made during the entire winter whenever the weather was 
suitable, the result being that the insect was found in matted blue 
grass and in the piles of refuse onions that had been left in the field, but 
more especially in the matted grass along ditches. It was found to 
winter over in all stages except that of the egg. A study of the vari- 
ous onion fields in northern Ohio has shown that where the surround- 
ings have been kept free of matted grass and largely cultivated there 
has been the least injury from these insects. The fact that it winters 
over in several stages of development fully explains the difficulty of 
tracing out generations in the field. On one extensive onion planta- 
tion that has heretofore been intersected by open ditches, the banks of 
which were grown up with blue grass, the experiment of destroying 
this grass is being carried out. As the field is situated on muck land 
it was, of course, impossible to burn these grassy banks over in the 
ordinary way, and therefore they were first sprayed with kerosene 
while the ground was still frozen and then fired. Either by this 
means or by plowing all of the grass along the banks of the ditches 
has been destroyed, and will be prevented from growing the present 
