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INJURIOUS INSECTS OF THE YEAR IN CANADA. 



By James Fletcher, Ottawa, Canada. 



The season of 1902 in Canada has been a remarkable one, being of 

 an unusually damp and cool nature. This has had an effect not only 

 upon the development and yields of many of our staple crops, but also 

 upon the prevalence of some of the important crop pests. There was 

 a noticeable absence of injury by some of the best-known insect ene- 

 mies of cereal and orchard crops, such as the Hessian fly, the wheat- 

 stem maggot, the codling moth, the plum curculio. the cankerworms, 

 and the tent caterpillars. Peas, formerly such an important crop in 

 Ontario, were little sown this year, from fear of the depredations of 

 the pea weevil, and some substitute crops, such as the grass pea, soja 

 beans, emmer, and clovers, were cultivated in their place. The season, 

 however, was inauspicious, and these crops were not grown with satis- 

 faction. The season, although favorable for most fodder crops, was 

 adverse to corn, the most important of all. over large areas. 



INSECTS AFFECTING CEREAL CROPS. 



Grain crops were little injured by insects during 1902 and yielded 

 unprecedented returns. There was an almost phenomenal disappear- 

 ance of the Hessian fly in western Ontario. No injury appears to have 

 been done, although during the season of 1901 both the occurrence of 

 the insect and its injuries were excessive. A serious outbreak of the 

 Hessian fly, however, occurred in Manitoba, and the losses were 

 doubtless far more extensive than was recognized, owing to the enor- 

 mous crop. In Manitoba there is only one brood of this insect, the 

 flies of which appear in spring at the time wheat is just sending up its 

 stems. Larvae from eggs laid upon the young leaves and hatching 

 before the stems shoot up, attack the root shoots and do much harm, 

 although this is seldom noticed by farmers. Those larvaa which hatch 

 later locate at the bases of the leaves of the lowest joints of the stem. 

 The t; flax-seeds" are formed by the end of June, but the flies do not 

 emerge till the following spring. Cutting high and the burning over 

 of stubble are recommended as remedies. 



LOCUSTS. 



A considerable amount of injury was done in Manitoba during the 

 past season by the Rock}' Mountain locust, the lesser migratory, Pack- 

 ard's, and the two-striped locusts. My object in mentioning this now 

 is to draw the attention of entomologists to the Criddle mixture of 

 horse droppings poisoned with Paris green or some other convenient 

 insecticide. Full details of this method have been given in my later 

 annual reports which, according to the constitution of this association, 



