42 



such abundance her agricultural products ; after supplying to repletion our own people^ 

 the excess is distributed to every quarter of the globe. Few of these varied products are 

 native to our soil. Nearly all of our fruits, grasses, cereals and vegetables are of foreign 

 importation, mainly from Europe. With their introduction many of the insects that 

 preyed upon them were also introduced, or have been subsequently brought hither, but, 

 unfortunately for us, the parasites which preyed upon them and kept them under control 

 have for the most part been left behind. As the result, the imported pests in their new 

 home find their favourite food-plants spread out in luxuriant growth over broad acres, 

 where they may ply their destructive work without hindrance or molestation until some 

 native parasites acquire the habit of preying upon them. Every crop cultivated on a 

 hirge scale ojffers strong invitation to insect attack, and wonderfully stimulates insect 

 multiplication. " 



How TO Treat Infested Clover Seed. 



Should any of our readers find themselves in possession of infested seed, the larva? 

 may be destroyed by heating the seed with constant agitation in a vessel freely exposed 

 to the air for an hour or two, which will cause the grubs to dry up and perish. Seed 

 may be heated in this way to a degree unpleasantly hot for the hand without injury. It 

 has also been suggested to enclose the seed in tight barrels and pour some benzine on it. 

 If the barrels were only partly full, and the seed agitated to disseminate the benzine 

 throughout the mass, this remedy would probably be efficient in destroying the larvse; but 

 a little of this liquid poured on the top of a full barrel, being very light and volatile, 

 would soon escape through the minute crevices of the barrel, and scarcely find its way to 

 any extent through the compact mass of seed. Chloroform or bisulphide of carbon would 

 perhaps answer a better purpose ; their vapours, being heavier than the air, would penetrate 

 dowTiwards, while benzine, being much lighter than air, would escape upwards. Camphor 

 has also been suggested, but it is not likely that this substance would produce any efiect 

 whatever. 



Remedies. 



Where this insect has become fairly established and is doing much damage, there 

 seems to be but one method of subduing it, and that is, for the farmers in such a district 

 to cease growing clover for a year or two, and thus in a measure starve the insect out. 

 This plan, however, would not be likely to entirely eradicate the evil, since it is known 

 that the insect sometimes attacks the white clover which grows everywhere as a weed. 

 If farmers in infested districts would cut their clover earlier than usual, just as it is 

 coming into bloom, and while the larvse are young, most of them would perish ; and this 

 might be accomplished at the expense of but a slight reduction in the value of the hay 

 crop, while the prospects for a crop of seed in the autumn would be comparatively good. 

 The more generally this plan was adopted the better the results would be ; indeed, united 

 effort in this direction would be essential in order to accomplish much, and at the same 

 time care should be taken to leave no clover uncut in fence corners or other out-of-the- 

 way places. 



Insect Parasites. 



Small as this insect pest is, there are insects still smaller which are parasites on it. 

 Two distinct species of these diminutive friends have been observed and their work 

 recorded by J. H. Comstock, in the Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture at Wash- 

 ington. They are both very minute four-winged flies ; one is very nearly related to the 

 celebrated Joint Worm Fly (Isosoma hordei), and has received the name of the Funereal 

 Eurytoma (Eurytoma funebris); the other is a species of Platygaster, known 2.% Flaty- 

 goMer error, Fitch. The first feeds on the larva of the clover seed midge while it is in 

 ^ the clover seed capsule ; undergoes all its transformations within the seed vessel, making 

 its exit as a fly through an irregular hole gnawed through the side, just large enough to 

 permit of its escape. This parasite is found emerging just about or shortly after the time 

 when the crop of midge larvse leave the clover heads to go into the ground. It h?.s been 

 found in abundance about Washington, where the first specimens were observed on the 



