REMEDIES AGAINST THE CRANBERRY FIRE WORM. 19 



next season, and the most careful examination discovered but a very 

 few eggs. 



RECOMMENDATIONS. 



Despite the success attending the use of some of the above insecti- 

 cides, the damage done by the larva of this insect this season was im- 

 mense — much more extensive in ^"ew Jersey than on Cape Cod, but suf- 

 ficiently great even there. One of Dr. Brakeley's bogs, which for a fair 

 crop should produce 1,500 bushels and has yielded 2,000, yielded this 

 year less than 200 bushels ; one 40-acre bog was almost entirely eaten 

 up, and bogs of excellent vines, which easily produce 200 bushels to the 

 acre, this season yielded but 40 to 50 bushels ; only a few bogs were 

 exempt, and the damage done amounted to many thousands of dollars. 

 Many of titfPgfowers are becoming disheartened because, though they 

 kill millions of larvae, yet they still lose their crops. The difficulty is not 

 with the means employed but with the time at which they are applied ; 

 the greatest damage is done by the second brood of larvae, in the first two or 

 three days of their life, because then, before spinning up leaves, they eat 

 into the buds, flowers, and young berries, a single larva in one day 

 sometimes destroying two or three berries or blossoms and being then 

 of a size so small as to be scarcely perceived ; their appearance is noted 

 when they begin to spin up the leaves and vines, and war is waged 

 against them, but it is then too late, the greatest damage is done, and 

 growers wonder why so few berries set. To be successful in saving a 

 crop the war must be vigorously carried on against the first brood and 

 against the imagines resulting therefrom. From the observations made 

 and recorded above, and having followed Dr. Brakeley's efforts pretty 

 closely during the past year, as well as from the experiences of others 

 reported to me, I advise the following course as most likely to be suc- 

 cessful : 



The water, if used as first proposed, i. e., reflowing when the larvae 

 begin to appear, will afford a nearly complete remedy, but even then 

 the surviving members of the first brood must be attacked, for a single 

 female produces from 20 to 25 eggs, and a few hundred escaped larvae 

 form the nucleus of a destructive second brood. Where the water can- 

 not be so used, it should be held very late, and drawn off gradually, 

 the object being to raise it to as high a temperature as possible, in order 

 to hasten the development of the larva and destroy it in embryo. When 

 the water is off, the vines should be daily examined, so as to note the 

 first appearance of the larva; the time will vary according to the tem- 

 perature of the air, as well as that of the water which had covered them. 

 In from three to ten days the larvae will be all hatched ; at first they will 

 burrow in the leaf, and then ascend to the tip, and their presence can 

 then be readily noted by the fact that the under side of the leaves 

 can be seen ; the top will be found drawn together, and the larva in- 

 side; a little experience will enable any one to tell at a glance : as be- 



