FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
35 
enemy was invading their state from 
Florida. My opinion is that the outbreak 
is one of but temporary nature, and 
that the insects will soon return to normal 
numbers. Any insect is liable to exhibit 
these temporary increases in numbers due 
often to some weather condition which 
is particularly favorable to the insect or 
unfavorable to one or more of its ene¬ 
mies. It is quite possible however that 
the increased planting of legumes may 
lead to a permanent increase in the num¬ 
bers of these insects. 
Although they sometimes injure the 
growth of small trees, their chief damage 
to citrus is to the fruit in the late fall. 
They puncture the fruit which turns yel¬ 
low and drops from the tree if the bugs 
are sufficiently abundant. These fruits 
are dry and tasteless, the juices having 
to a considerable extent been extracted by 
the bugs. Tangerines are their first choice; 
oranges come next, while grapefruit is sel¬ 
dom injured. It is to be noticed that the 
severity of the damage is inversely pro¬ 
portional to the thickness of the rind. 
Probably it is the thick rind on the grape¬ 
fruit that makes them less attractive. 
Early in November we were given an 
opportunity to test the actual cost of col¬ 
lecting these bugs on a 200-acre grove and 
to try out on a large scale several differ¬ 
ent types of nets. The trees were ten 
years old set 20x30 ft. and averaged from 
30 to 100 bugs per tree. 97% of them 
were Pumpkin Bugs (Nezarra viridula.) 
Most of the remainder were Brown Stink 
Bugs, but there were a few Cotton Stain¬ 
ers and Leaf-footed Plant-bugs among 
them. 
The method used in collecting these 
bugs was suggested by that formerly used 
in collecting the curculio from plum and 
peach trees. Large nets were made of 
muslin. These should be at least three 
feet in diameter and of equal depth. They 
have a short handle which extends across 
the diameter of the net to stiffen the rim 
which is of telephone wire. We first 
tried smaller nets but found them to be 
too small for rapid work. 
One man can manipulate this net but 
two work to better advantage. One holds 
the net under a limb full of fruit and the 
other gives the limb a vigorous shake 
which causes the bugs to drop and roll 
to the bottom of the net. After the men 
had finished each tree the tip of the net 
with the contained bugs was dipped into 
a bucket of kerosene. This keeps the 
net constantly wet with kerosene. 
In the above mentioned grove it cost be¬ 
tween thirty and seventy-five cents per 
acre to collect the bugs. A pair of men 
working together covered an acre in from 
one hour to 2p> hours according to the 
amount of fruit and the number of bugs 
present. The men cost $1.50 per day 
apiece. This is less than the cost of spray¬ 
ing would have been even had we a safe 
and effective insecticide. On larger trees 
with more bugs and fruit the cost would 
of course be greater but should in few 
cases cost more than $2.00 per acre, still 
much less than the cost of spraying. On 
large trees that do not have too many 
lipibs touching the ground and are not 
too close together to allow manipulation, 
these nets should be made larger. We 
made some 6x12 ft. These were sus¬ 
pended from a light wooden frame some¬ 
what like those our grandmothers used 
