160 



INJURIOUS INSECTS AND FUNGI. 



[Sept. 1896. 



Kainit, broadcasted on land cropped with onions, at the 

 -rate of 5 cwt. per acre, has been found to be of great use. 

 The action of kainit, as a preventive of some kinds of insect 

 attack in larval form, has been often noticed, though it is 

 rather difficult to define the form or nature of its action. In 

 the case of the onion maggots it would appear that kainit 

 prevents their progress from one onion to another, either by the 

 shape of its crystals, or by some pungent emanation from it. 

 It is not the stimulus that it gives to plants which makes them 

 grow away from their enemies, as kainit is not by any means 

 a forcing manure. Kainit should be hoed very lightly in after it 

 has been broadcasted on. 



Nitrate of soda, applied at the rate of 1^ to 2 cwt. per acre, 

 should be put on infested land in order to stimulate the plants 

 and make them grow away from the enemy. 



Lime and soot, mixed together in the proportion of 1 bushel 

 of soot to 2 bushels of lime, very finely powdered and broad- 

 casted over the infested plants, and lightly hoed in, has been 

 efficacious in a degree. 



Carpocapsa Pomonella in Walnuts. 



In November last the Board of Agriculture received some 

 walnuts attacked by an insect which, they were informed, had 

 caused the nuts to drop off prematurely in some cases, while in 

 other cases it had been found in the nuts stored for use. The 

 nuts that were sent showed no external signs of infestation, but 

 upon cracking a nut a caterpillar was found within it feeding 

 upon the contents. This was apparently the larva of the 

 Codlin motb, Carpocapsa pomonella, being close upon one 

 fourth of an inch long, pink in colour, with a brown head, but 

 as it was like the larva of other Carpocapsidce, the nuts were 

 kept until the 18th of June, when the moths appeared. The 

 moth was Carpocapsa pomonella. having brownish upper wings 

 streaked slightly with grey, and near the hinder corner a patch 

 of metallic lustre ; the hinder wings and abdomen were brown 

 with grey tinges. The contents of the nuts were only partially 

 eaten by the caterpillars, but they were quite spoilt by the frass, 

 the debris of the cocoon, and the pupa case of the moth. All 

 the nuts from which moths came had been gently cracked in 

 November and left with the shells upon them. If they had 

 not been thus treated the moths could not have emerged, and in 

 all probability would not have been formed. It would seem 

 that the larva leaves the nut, as a rule, before it has become 

 hard, and that only the belated larva? are imprisoned by the 

 hardened shell. 



In the ordinary course the larva comes from the nut while 

 the shell is yet comparatively soft, and, ensconcing itself in the 

 cracks of the bark, spins a cocoon, in which it remains until 



