69 



days in the blossom end on the calyx, and the sepals are practical ly 

 leaf tissue; they are green and are covered with the leaf hairs, and 

 are to all intents and purposes little leaves. 



Mr. Fletcher presented the following paper: 



CAN THE PEA WEEVIL BE EXTERMINATED? 



By Dr. James Fletcher. Ottawa, Canada. 



My object in bringing the subject of the pea weevil prominently 

 before this association is to make an appeal for cooperation to those 

 of our members who hold official positions in those States of the Union 

 where peas are grown for seed. I am led to do this at the present 

 juncture for two reasons. In the first place, the loss from this insect 

 is now very great, amounting annually in the Canadian Province of 

 Ontario alone to upward of $1,000,000; in the second place, because I 

 believe that from certain exceptional features of this attack, extensive 

 as it is, there is more reasonable hope that it might be entirely put a 

 stop to, than is often the case with an insect injury of anything like 

 the same magnitude: and. further than this, because the present time 

 is most opportune for making a special effort. Owing to the extent 

 of this injury, many growers of peas have relinquished the cultivation 

 of this important crop over large areas where, but for the depreda- 

 tions of the pea weevil, it would be one of the most remunerative crops 

 they could grow. 



The life history and habits of the pea weevil are probably well 

 known to everyone here present. I shall therefore merely remind 

 you in the briefest way possible of the leading facts which bear upon 

 its possible extermination. The pea weevil is an exotic insect which 

 feeds entirely upon an exotic plant. It has no other known food plant 

 than the cultivated pea, and this is an annual, which in Canada never 

 survives the winter or produces a volunteer crop the second year from 

 seeds left on the land the previous year, which have failed to germi- 

 nate. The pea weevil normally passes the winter inside the seed peas 

 and emerges the following spring before or at the time the seeds are 

 sown. A proportion, however, the number of which varies with dif- 

 ferent seasons, emerge during the same autumn that the seeds ripen, 

 leave the peas, and hibernate in the perfect state. This autumn emer- 

 gence furnishes one of the greatest difficulties in securing an effective 

 remedy. The weevils which pass the winter inside the peas can be 

 destroyed hx the treatment of the seed at any time before sowing; on 

 the other hand, those which leave the peas in autumn hide in various 

 shelters during the winter and can not be reached, but flv to the field 



