INSECT ENEMIES OF TOBACCO IN HAWAII. 



As the results of the experiments at Hamakua in 1904 seem to 

 indicate there is a possibility of tobacco growing being added to 

 Hawaii's diversified agriculture, it is believed desirable that those 

 interested in the subject should be informed concerning the tobacco- 

 feeding insects already present in the islands. Necessarily little can 

 be said regarding their local status or the methods that will prove 

 most effective and applicable for their control here. However, the 

 planter's ability to recognize the species injurious to tobacco, the 

 symptoms of their attack and" a knowledge of remedies found to be 

 effective elsewhere, will be the principal equipment needed to wage 

 war successfully against the enemies of this crop. Detailed accounts 

 of their life cycle, the time, or rather, in Hawaii, the times of their 

 appearance, their relative injurious importance, and definite advice for 

 their control must follow field cultivation. The writer has relied 

 chiefly on Doctor Howard's bulletin, The Principal Insects Affecting 

 the Tobacco Plant/' and on the work of Quaintance^.in Florida, and 

 Garman c in Kentucky for the following information: 



CUTWORMS. 



The cutworms are the young or larva? of moths whose habits in 

 general are to hide during the day beneath rubbish or in the loose soil 

 and come forth at night to feed. They derive their common name 

 from the fact that they eat through or cut off at the surface of the 

 ground the plants upon which they feed, thus destroying more than 

 they actually take as food. The most destructive cutworms in Hawaii 

 are species of a single genus, Agrotis, some of which are peculiar to 

 the islands. The native name is "peelua," from u pee," to hide and 

 u lua," a hole, referring to the manner in which the worms conceal 

 themselves by burrowing into the soil during the daytime. One early 

 writer sa} T s: 



The origin of the Hawaiian peelua can not be determined. No person living can 

 settle the date of its arrival, if it ever came. The oldest native when asked the ques- 

 tion, "When did the peelua come?" will answer, "Oia mau no " [it has always been 

 there], d 



« U. S. Dept. of Agr., Farmers' Bui. 120, 1900. 

 & Florida Experiment Station Bui. 48, 1898. 



c Kentucky Experiment Station Buls. 49, 58, and 66, 1894, 1895, 1896. 

 d J. E. Chamberlain. Hawaiian Almanac and Annual, p. 46, 1883. 



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