19 



not attacked by the insect. Externally, therefore, the stack seems perfectly sound ana 

 safe, when within it may be a mass of fragments and dung. The manner of eating 

 the blades you may see in the bits put in the box sent yon. They eat it pretty much 

 all except the central vein ; especially at the binds, where most compact, they eat 

 all, running from that towards the ends. But a moldy or spoiled spot they never 

 touch. The stack of fodder I saw had been put up about the last of August, 188S, 

 and as remarked appeared perfectly sound till opened about the 1st of April. I am 

 told the larvae were then numerous, but they had already begun to web up. This is 

 about all I can tell you ; I never saw the egg. — [Lawrence C. Johnson, Bolivar, Tenn., 

 May 19, 1889. 



Reply. — Your letter of the 19th, from Bolivar, Tenn., has just come. Thank you 

 very much for the additional information relative to the habits of HeJia cemula. I 

 should imagine from what you write that the value of the fodder stacks is so slight 

 that altogether the most satisfactory remedy will be to burn those which are infested 

 with this insect. It strikes me that in this way and at slight expense the numbers 

 of this pest cau be greatly reduced. 



The worm which you found in dry clover was probably a different thing, and I 

 have no doubt that it was the common Clover-haj' Worm (Asopia costalis), which you 

 will find figured and described on pages 102 to 107 of Professor Riley's Sixth Report 

 on the Insects of Missouri. — [May 23, 1889.] 



Colonel Pearson's Method of fighting Rose Beetles. 



I kill Rose-bugs by smashing them. I know of no insecticide which is also an in- 

 secticide for the Rose-bug — that is, which will kill the bugs and yet not injure the 

 plant. Pyrethrum will intoxicate or stupefy them. They will fall from their perch 

 and after a time recover and fly again. I have been experimenting for the past two 

 weeks with all the poisons procurable in the drug shops, and without desired results. 

 In dealing with Rose-bugs in my vineyards I send my men along the trellis early, 

 from 6 to 10 a. m. They strike the vines with paddles; the bugs fall on the ground, and 

 then they smasJi them with the paddles. The vines are trained upon a single wire, and 

 the ground is made smooth and clean beneath, so that when the bugs fall'they are at 

 our mercy. This job must be done every morning until the bugs leave the vines for 

 other foods. They are now on my strawberries and roses by myriads. Even if we 

 could find something medicinal to kill the bugs, it would he of no use during such 

 an invasion as we have had for the past three years in Vineland. Kill one aud four 

 more come to attend the corpse. They migrate aud travel onward like the Army- 

 worm. They must be fought by killing them as fast as they come. I have by this 

 constant work for two or three weeks saved most of my vines, and I am now search- 

 ing for something which will be offensive to them and drive them away from the plants 

 they infest. Carbolated lime is the best I have found thus far. — [Alex. W. Pearson, 

 Vineland, N. J., June 15, 1869. 



Lyctus sp. in Bamboo. 



I send you by mail to-day three bugs that are eating up a bamboo work-basket 

 from Japan that I bought in Chinatown, San Francisco, Cal., a year ago last April. 

 I have given it a thorough heating with flat-irons, which did not kill the pests, and 

 then I gave the basket as thorough a bath of benzine, and that has not destroyed 

 them. * * * The basket is being perforated with round holes, under which I find 

 little dust piles. The dust I send with the bugs. — [Mrs. N. W. C. Holt, Winchester, 

 Mass., June 20, 1889. 



Reply. — I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of June 20. The insect 

 found in your bamboo work-basket is not unknown as an enemy to bamboo imported 

 from China and Japan. It is a species of a genus of wood-boiing beetles called by 

 entomologists Lyctus. You need not fear the spread of this insect, as they feed on 



