74 



Concerning pyretlirum, I liave seen practically nothing new contrib- 

 uted during tlie year. Of tlie insecticides less commonly used, Fletclier 

 has found white hellebore sufficient for the destruction of the cabbage 

 maggot J Washburn has protected radishes against the flea-beetle with 

 ^ strong tobacco water; Coquillett has experimented further and with 

 good success with lime, salt, and sulphur for the scale insects; both he 

 and Miss Murtfeldt have tried the new thymo-cresol, with especially 

 encouraging results thus far, for scale insects and plant-lice only; and 

 Garman has found the Bordeaux mixture to have insecticide properties 

 Tiitherto unsuspected. Of other miscellaneous insecticide experiments 

 I can recall only those of Osborn, some showing the precise value of 

 i:he kerosene pan for the grass insects, and others, still more important, 

 by which as many as 376,000 grass insects per acre (mostly leaf-hop- 

 pers and young grasshopi)ers) were taken by simply dragging over the 

 grass a sheet of iron coated with coal tar on the upper surface. 



Concerning that great department of economic work in entomology, 

 v^hich consists of the invention and trial of variations of agricultural 

 and horticultural practice with a yiew to the control of insect injuries, 

 I regret to say that I have little to report. The most imjiortant experi- 

 ments published during the year are those carried on by Comstock, of 

 l^ew York, in the course of his studies on the wireworms. The often 

 recommended and almost standard remedy, a clean fallow, for these in- 

 sects was absolutely without effect. Just as many wireworms remained 

 alive after a year in his breeding cage where no vegetation had been 

 allowed to grow, as in his check cage, where grass had been kept grow- 

 ing continuously. Similar failures resulted from sowings of buck- 

 vvheat, mustard, and rape, and the application of fertilizers of various 

 sorts. In fact, nothing tried was found to serve for the destruction of the 

 larvse, the only method of value arrived at taking effect on the pux)?e and 

 adults in the earth. This was plowing in the interval between August 

 and the following winter, the plowing to be followed by a thorough 

 pulverization of the soil for the destruction of the earthen cells of the 

 pupse and adults. 



In this connection I may also mention Osborn's observation that the 

 clover-seed caterpillar may be destroyed completely by cutting the clover 

 while this insect is in the larval state; and the fact reported in the 

 Farmers^ Eevieic, of Chicago, that the Mammoth Clover blooms and 

 ripens between broods of the clover-seed midge, and thus escapes that 

 insect enemy. 



I cannot i^ass this point without remarking on what seems to me a 

 loss of opportunity by experiment station entomologists in their failure 

 to avail themselves more generaUj- of the experimental resources of the 

 stations for a trial of variations in agricultural method— in cropping, in. 

 preparation of the soil, in cultivation and management of the crops, 

 and the like — as a means of prevention and remedy applicable to the 

 leading insect enemi'^ of the principal farm crops. The fact that 



