229 



and Alabatna the insect turned its attention from the Ground Cherry 

 to Tobacco for some temporary reason, that the summer of 188fj was 

 an exceptional one, and that the insect will not find in Tobacco a stable 

 food-plant. It is possible, however, that it may become a permanent 

 enemy to the crop. There are probably at least three annual genera- 

 tions in Georgia and Alabama, and the insect winters in the pupa state 

 underground. The pupa was sent to us several times in the course of 

 the Cotton Worm investigation as belonging in all probabiUt^^ to the 

 Cotton Worm, and on page 17 of the Fourth Eeport of the Entomolog- 

 ical Commission (where the insect is considered under the name of As - 

 pila virescens) an interesting account is given of this mistaken identity. 

 Should the insect again become abundant upon Tobacco, a good remedy 

 will be dif&cult to find. The best which we can suggest will be the use 

 of Pj-rethrum powder, diluted either with flour or plaster in the propor- 

 tion of one part to ten. 



BIRDS AND THE WHITE GRUB. 



Mrs. Mar}^ Treat, in a recent number of Orchard and Garden^ records 

 observ^ations. showing that a family of Brown Thrushes fed abundantly 

 upon White Grubs. She has also seen the Eobin feeding upon this 

 larva. 



DOSING TREES WITH SULPHUR AND OTHER SUBSTANCES. 



There is a prevailing and popular idea that insects may be driven 

 from trees by boring holes through the bark into the wood, placing sul- 

 phur therein, and plugging the hole. There are some persons who pro- 

 fess to have tried the experiment with success, to have cleared trees, 

 such as Elms of the destroying worm, etc. Prof. C. Y. Rile^^, Ento- 

 mologist of the Department of Agriculture, pronounces these remedies 

 fallacious. 



"The belief in this efficacy," he says, " is founded on the supposition 

 that the poison passes with the sap into general circulation and with it 

 into the foliage, and is destructive to leaf-feeding insects. It is an en- 

 tirely unfounded idea, and is based upon ignorance of the fact that the 

 substance remains intact, and is not taken up in the circulation. In- 

 stances where it has seemed to succeed have been recorded, and in such 

 cases its apparent efficacy was due to a coincident disappearance of 

 the insect from some other cause. Sulphur which I plugged up in such 

 holes many j'ears ago was found to be perfectly unchanged after many 

 months. All such remedies may be stamped as nonsense." — Scientific 

 American, December 8, 1888, vol. 59, p. 353. 



ALU3I AS A CURRANT W0R3I REMEDY. 



At the Massachusetts Station, Prof. Fernald has been experimenting 

 with alum as a destroyer of Currant Worms, and concludes that *' alum 



i 



