Plant- Diseases and Insects. 



101 



periment station, improved machinery and the water mix- 

 tures of poisons have come into general use amongst the 

 farmers and potato-growers in the Norfolk region, and some 

 of the largest growers now claim that they at present do for 

 from $40 to $60 what used to cost them from $500 to $600. 

 To-day in California and Florida orange trees are universally 

 treated with kerosene and resin emulsions or poisonous gas 

 for scale insects. In the treatment of cabbage caterpillars, 

 pyrethrum diluted with four times its weight of common 

 flour, and then kept tightly closed for 24 hours, leaves noth- 

 ing to be desired, and thousands of dollars are yearly saved to 

 small growers who most need the assistance. 



" Many excellent remedies have been devised by a mere 

 modification of existing agricultural methods. Instances of 

 these are found in the early and late sowing or harvesting of 

 some crops, as sowing turnips between the broods of the turnip 

 flea-beetle, the late planting of cabbage for the root-maggot, 

 the late sowing of wheat for the Hessian fly, etc. In the 1879 

 report of the United States Department of Agriculture was 

 first detailed the only successful method of treating the clover- 

 seed midge by cutting or feeding off the first crop before the 

 young larvae are sufficiently matured to leave the heads and go 

 into the ground to pupate. This was simply a change of one 

 week, by which not only is the insect destroyed, but the clover 

 is saved in better condition than under the old method." 



Attention is now being given to devising laws to aid in the 

 mitigation of injury from fungi and insects, and within a few 

 years many states will no doubt take steps in this direction. 

 The recent gipsy-moth legislation* in Massachusetts is the 

 most distinct effort yet made in this country to control any 

 insect or plant disease. It is yet too early to prophesy the 

 outcome of the war against the gipsy-moth, for although the 

 results thus far reached are not wholly encouraging, those in 

 charge of the enterprise are sanguine of ultimate success. 



Washington has passed "An act to create a State Board 

 of Horticulture," which was approved Feb. 16, 1891, and 

 which provides for an officer known as the " Inspector of 

 Fruit-pests." The regulations are as follows : 



" For the purpose of preventing the spread of contagious 



*See Annals for 1890^.75. The law is printed in full in Insect Life, iii. 472 (Aug. 

 1891). See also discussion in Insect Life, iii. 368.^ 



