74 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
February 4 
INSECT PESTS OF 1898. 
Report of the Committee on Entomology. 
BY M. V. SUNDERLAND, CHAIRMAN. 
The Pear Psylla. —I do not believe that the pear 
psylla is any tougher or harder to kill than it ever 
was, neither is it becoming immune to the usual in¬ 
secticides. Be on the watch early in the season ; do 
not let the insect breed unmolested in the Spring and 
M. V. SLINGERLAND. 
Assistant Entomologist Cornell. Fig. 28. 
thus get beyond control; aim the spray straight, and 
put an intelligent hand on the nozzle. In pear or¬ 
chards where the psylla ran riot in 1898, I believe it 
would be a wise investment to treat the trees this 
Winter or early in the Spring before growth begins. 
Many of the last brood of old or adult psyllas, which 
are developed on the trees in the Fall, hibernate dur¬ 
ing the Winter in the crevices of the bark of the pear 
trees. Drench the bark thoroughly with a strong 
kerosene emulsion (one part emulsion to four or five 
of water), whale-oil soap (one pound in three to five 
gallons of water), or, perhaps better still, a spray 
from one of the new pumps which mixes kerosene 
with water, using about one part of kerosene to 9 or 
10 of water. 
Tent Caterpillars. —If there ever was a “tent 
caterpillar year ” in New York State, it was in 1898. 
Three kinds or species of hairy caterpillars were en¬ 
gaged in the destructive work, and in many instances, 
forest and shade trees suffered equally with fruit 
trees from their ravages. Why is it that fruit grow¬ 
ers, and especially owners of a tree or two in their 
front yards, will not go to the slight trouble or ex¬ 
pense of either removing and burning the conspicuous 
egg masses or the young worms in their little nests, 
or of spraying the infested trees or branches with a 
strong Paris-green spray when the worms and webs 
are small ? In some orchards, the Apple tent cater¬ 
pillar was aided in its nefarious work by its first 
cousin, the Forest tent caterpillar. The latter insect 
makes no web, and thus is not a true tent caterpillar ; 
it has a row of white spots along the middle of its 
back, while the Apple tent caterpillar has a con¬ 
tinuous white stripe down its back ; otherwise the 
two caterpillars are very similar. While very numer¬ 
ous in some orchards, the Forest tent caterpillar 
turned its attention more especially to forest and 
shade trees, showing a decided preference for maples. 
Thousands of thrifty maples were left without a 
single leaf in June. I feel encouraged to believe that 
Nature is doing her best to take care of the hordes of 
caterpillars for us. Except when the Army worm was 
with us in 1896,1 never saw insect parasites so numer¬ 
ous and so effective as they appeared to be in that 
sugar bush. Many moths succeeded in developing in 
spite of the vigilance of their little enemies, and many 
of the characteristic rings of eggs were to be seen on 
the twigs in the Fall. Hence the Forest tent cater¬ 
pillar will, doubtless, again appear in destructive 
numbers in 1899, but I believe its parasites will get 
the upper hand in a year or so. 
The third tent caterpillar is the one commonly 
known as the Fall webworm. The small hairy worms 
make unsightly nests similar to those of the Apple 
tent caterpillar. The worms and their nests do not 
appear, however, until the latter part of Summer and 
early Fall. The worms feed inside their nest all the 
time, enlargingtheirnestfrom time to time to inclose 
fresh branches or pasture ground. This Fall web¬ 
worm as yet confines itself mostly to forest and shade 
trees. It is no uncommon sight to find hundreds of 
these worms’ nests in wild cherry or other trees along 
the country roadsides or on shade trees in parks or 
private grounds. The nests with their inhabitants 
can be quickly removed and burned. 
Canker-Worms. —All through western New York 
in June could be seen apple orchards in the prime of life 
with scarcely a green leaf on them. They were living 
advertisements of the fact that canker-worms are 
abroad in our State. When one realizes that para¬ 
sites and other insect enemies are doing but little to 
reduce their numbers, it becomes one of the most 
serious questions which confront western New York 
apple growers. Extending in a narrow strip, only a 
few miles wide, from a little east of Rochester, 
through some of our best apple-growing sections to 
the Niagara River, is to be found the present canker- 
worm belt or infested territory. Not less than 3,000 
acres of valuable apple orchards in this infested belt 
were stripped of their foliage by canker-worms in 
1898. I feel sure that this average will not be any less 
in 1899. 
Five different kinds of canker-worms or measuring- 
worms are engaged in this destructive work. They 
are : the Spring canker-worm, the Lime-tree Winter- 
moth, Bruce’s canker-worm, the Fall canker-worm, 
and one which I am calling the Half-winged canker- 
worm moth. Nine-tenths of the damage is being done 
by the Spring canker-worm, but in some orchards, 
either Bruce’s canker-worm or the Lime-tree winter- 
moth predominates. The moths of the first and last 
kinds mentioned above emerge and lay their eggs in 
the Spring, while the eggs of the other three kinds 
are laid in the Fall. A visit to this orchard in the 
evening with a lantern would astonish many an 
orchardist who is troubled by canker-worms. I saw 
in one orchard at least 1,000 Spring canker-worm 
moths going up one apple tree in one evening. It 
was with much pity that I saw men spi’aying their 
trees with Paris-green after most of the worms had 
become full grown, and many had already gone into 
the ground to undergo their transformations. To 
fight these pests successfully with a spray one must 
begin feeding the worms the poison when they are 
small. It will be necessary to resort to something in 
addition to the poison spray, for the insects occur in 
almost incredible numbers in many orchards. There 
are many devices for preventing the moths from going 
up the trees to lay their eggs. I saw some of these in 
operation and tested others last Spring. Where the 
moths are as thick as I saw them in many orchards, 
the ordinary sticky bands, cotton-batting bands, and 
similar devices would not prevent hundreds of the 
moths from getting up the trees. When properly put 
on and properly cared for while the insects are “ run¬ 
ning ” up the trees, the simplest, cheapest, most prac¬ 
ticable, and most successful device for this purpose I 
have seen in use is the Common-sense wire trap. I 
have seen thousands of female Spring canker-worm 
moths caught and killed in one of these wire traps be¬ 
fore they had laid any eggs. The traps also catch 
many other insects, and I found that predaceous and 
parasitic insects were discovering that the traps 
afforded a good rendezvous where they could be sure 
to find a generous feast. One cannot encourage such 
friends too much. If I had an orchard badly infested 
with canker-worms, I would begin in the Fall with 
the wire traps, putting them on properly and then at¬ 
tending to them during the Fall and Spring. I should 
expect that my ideal orchard would need a little 
Paris-green after the traps had done their work on 
the moths. 
The Grape-Vine Flea-Beetle. —In 1898, the fruit 
on acres of grape vines in New York State was 
nipped in the bud by the jaws of a little blue beetle, 
popularly known as the Grape-vine flea-beetle or the 
Steely-bug or beetle. The little blue beetles are on 
hand early in the Spring, and often most of the 
opening grape buds have been destroyed before the 
grower discovers that some of his vines do not start 
into growth as they should in the Spring. Later in the 
season, a second crop of leaves usually comes on, but 
no fruit matures. After satisfying their hunger ac¬ 
quired from a long Winter’s fast, the little blue beetles 
begin laying eggs in the crevices of the bark, usually 
near the buds. From these eggs there hatch small 
brown grubs which feed upon the upper sur¬ 
faces of the leaves, often riddling the foliage 
with holes. These grubs soon go into the soil 
where they transform into the blue beetles, which 
emerge in July and feed either upon the grape leaves 
or upon the leaves of many other plants in the neigh¬ 
borhood until Fall, when they go into hibernation. 
Thus the beetles which will eat the buds in the 
Spring of 1899 were developed and fed in the Summer 
and Fall of 1898. 
I have controlled the pest with a strong Paris-green 
spray on the buds in early Spring, but it requires very 
thorough work where the beetles are numerous. The 
insect is much more vulnerable in the grub stage, and 
every effort should be made to prevent its develop¬ 
ment into the destructive beetles. 
TILLAGE AND PRODUCTIVITY. 
BY PROF. I. P. ROBERTS. 
Some Rich Soils. —In looking over the analyses 
of some soils, recently made at the Cornell University 
Experiment Station, I found that 16 soils, excluding 
those that were phenomenally high, showed an aver¬ 
age of 4,587 pounds of nitrogen, 4,267 pounds of phos¬ 
phoric acid and 41,600 pounds of potash per acre in 
the first eight inches of soil, or a total of 50,453 pounds 
of potential plant food per acre, allowing that an 
acre of soil containing 12% per cent of moisture, eight 
inches deep, weighs 1,200 tons. A soil from Jefferson 
County showed 4.07 per cent of potash. Thi3 indi¬ 
cates that there were 86,827 pounds or 43.41 tons of pot¬ 
ash per acre in eight inches of surface soil, and 7,040 
pounds of phosphoric acid in the same soil. This soil 
had a reasonable amount of nitrogen, quite enough 
to produce abundant crops for many years. A sail 
from Wayne County analyzed 2 75 per cent of nitro¬ 
gen. Using the same computation as above, this 
would show 58,667 pounds of potential nitrogen per 
acre. On a few of the soils referred to, not more than 
10 tons of sugar beets were raised per acre, and the 
potatoes on the adjoining land, which was supposed 
to be of equal fertility, gave not more than 130 bushels 
per acre. These facts led me to think most seriously, 
and to ask many hard questions. 
Rich Yet Poor. —First, why should a soil contain¬ 
ing such vast quantities of plant food, some of it as 
rich in nitrogen and potash as many commercial fer¬ 
tilizers sold on the market, produce such meager re¬ 
sults ? Is the plant food in these soils so fearfully 
lazy that no skill or energy can make it available, or 
is it more likely that our careless methods of tillage 
do not make available enough plant food for the crop, 
or is it for lack of moisture to transport the food into 
the plant ? 
It was found that the soil which contained more 
than 43 tons of potash per acre in the first eight 
inches was benefited by the application of 200 pounds 
of muriate of potash per acre. The average increase 
of potatoes on five plots due to the potash was 40 
bushels, while both nitrogen and phosphoric acid 
apparently diminished the yield. Here is a soil over¬ 
loaded with potential potash, yet responds to an appli¬ 
cation of muriate of potash. Would there have been 
enough available potash for the potatoes had better 
tillage been given ? 
The gold seekers traveled hundreds of weary miles 
over the arid plains to reach Pike's Peak, and then 
camped in their poverty and rags upon the very mines 
which, in recent years, have produced hundreds of 
thousands of dollars of the yellow and white metals. 
It was not the fault of the gold that it did not leap 
from the earth and do its legitimate work, but the 
fault of those who camped just above it, and so in like 
manner these gold seekers, when they returned, lived 
upon the land which contained in the despised earth 
untold wealth. It was not the fault of the nitrogen, 
phosphoric acid or potash that it did not get to cir¬ 
culating in the channels of trade, but the fault of the 
men who resided on the farms. Are we as blind and 
WM. N. OUR. 
Superintendent of Canadian Spraying Experiments. Fig. 29. 
as ignorant as were those who camped on the plateau 
in sight of Pike’s Peak ? Some of the soil, even in 
New York, is not worthy of the efforts of the intelli¬ 
gent husbandman. It should, like the undesirable 
mine, be abandoned. 
Wliat About It ?—But what shall be done with 
the agricultural mine which would pay large divi¬ 
dends if only a moderate amount of knowledge and 
skill were applied? Why such meager average rewards? 
It has been shown that the soil contains vast quan- 
