10 
INSECTS INJURIOUS TO SUGAR CANE. 
same color with the fore wings, but with the male the former are silvery 
white. 
It is impossible to estimate, at present, the number of broods, but there 
are several in the course of the season. Where the insects have been 
abundant, towards the end of the season the canes present a sadly 
damaged appearance ; in some of them every section has had two or three 
of the borers at work, rendering them, of course, worse than useless. It 
is to be observed also that even in canes in which but one or two of the 
borers have operated, the other joints are very apt to become diseased, 
and seed cane which has been tunneled by the worms naturally mildews 
and decays much more readily than the sound cane. 
AMOUNT OF DAMAGE. 
Last year (1880) the cane borers were very abundant in various parts 
of Plaquemines Parish, and we also heard of their presence in Assump- 
tion and Saint Mary’s Parish. On questioning several planters in the 
latter parish, it was learned that the borer has been known there for 
years, but has never been sufficiently abundant to attract especial atten- 
tion, and most of the planters knew it only by its holes in the cane. The 
very early spring of 1880 and the opeu winter which preceded it, while 
forwarding the crop, were also favorable to the hibernation and rapid 
development of the worms. Upon Dr. Wilkinson’s plantation (near 
Wood Park, parish of Plaquemines), fully 10 per cent, of the canes 
were injured, and in some places, where the damage was greatest, as high 
as 30 per cent. The crops upon other plantations in that vicinity were 
also injured as much. The loss would have been felt quite severely had 
it not been such an extremely favorable cane year. 
REMEDIES. 
According to our present information, the cane borers hibernate almost 
exclusively in the larva or “worm” state. During the winter they are 
to be found most abundantly, of course, in the seed cane, but also in the 
discarded tops, and also to a slighter extent in the stubble. We cannot 
hope, of course, to exterminate the insect, owing to the extreme difficulty 
of fighting it in the stubble, but the number of larva; which hibernate in 
this place is so small that, supposing the others killed off, the borer can 
be well kept in subjection. It is the custom upon most plantations to 
plow the tops under for fertilizers, but if the plan of burning them dur- 
ing the winter were universally adopted, many of the borers would doubt- 
less be killed which otherwise would help to start the next summer’s 
brood. 
The question of dealing with by far the larger number, which are to 
be found in the cane stored away for seed, now remains. In such cane 
as is planted in the fall it is reasonable to suppose that the borer will 
not be able to develop, or if it should develop that the moth will not 
