36 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
for making quilts or stretching curtains. 
The longitudinal pieces projected out a 
couple of feet for handles. The nets 
were made full so that they sagged down 
two or three feet in the center. The cloth 
should be close woven canvas so that 
insecticide oil or kerosene can be placed 
in the bottom to provide a bath for the 
bugs. Some cotton waste to absorb the 
oil and roll around among the bugs is also 
efficient if remoistened occasionally and 
will not spill out as readily. It will re¬ 
quire two men to manipulate the bag and 
at least one other to shake the branches. 
On large trees these will be more econom¬ 
ical than the smaller nets strung on wire. 
The best way to use these large nets will 
be to work them in pairs, a net on each 
side of the tree and large enough so that 
the two together will cover the entire 
space under a tree. With two men to 
each net and three or four others to shake 
the tree the grove should be worked as 
rapidly as with the smaller nets and 
smaller trees, i. e., it should not take over 
two hours to cover an acre of fairly large 
seedling trees. Allowing 15c per hour for 
each man and 8 men in the gang, would 
bring the cost per acre to $2.40. As 
stated above, however, these large nets can 
be used only where the limbs are free of 
the ground. Moreover they are effective 
only at a temperature below 70 degrees F. 
Above that the bugs will take to wing as 
they drop and before they hit the canvas. 
The use of these large nets is therefore 
restricted to very early morning, to moon¬ 
light nights and to cold days, while the 
smaller nets can be used all day although 
more effectively when the temperature is 
low. 
But the old adage that an ounce of 
preventative is worth a pound of cure 
applies here. The attacks of these bugs 
are usually brought on either by allowing 
the cover crop of cowpeas, beggarweed, or 
velvet beans to remain on the ground too 
long; by lack of sufficient thoroughness 
in cutting (as by leaving uncut patches 
between the trees); or by the wrong 
method in cutting. The cover crop should 
be cut by the middle of September and the 
man with the scythe should precede rather 
than follow the mowing machine—i. e., 
the spaces about the trees and between the 
treees in the row should be cut first, leav¬ 
ing the middles to be cut later. There are 
but few winged adults at that season but 
many wingless nymphs which cannot fly 
nor crawl far. This method of cutting 
drives these young away from the trees 
into the middles and when the latter are 
mown most of the young bugs perish and 
there will be but few produced before 
cold weather puts an end to breeding. 
Neglect of the cover crop does not 
by any means always result in an out¬ 
break of the bugs, other factors including 
enemies may enter to keep the bugs down, 
but it may so result. 
As a result of these tests I am satisfied 
that, once these bugs get into the trees 
they can be collected at a comparatively 
low cost per acre and that this is the 
most satisfactory method of dealing with 
them as far as our present knowledge 
goes. 
