‘Iht  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
I  08^ 
Questions  About  Insects 
Answered  by  Prof.  Glenn  W.  Herrick 
The  Pink  and  Green  Potato  Aphid 
Will  you  advise  as  to  what  to  do  to 
my  14-acre  potato  field?  I  have  a  field  of 
potatoes  which  are  hit  every  year  by 
plant  lice.  I  have  planted  potatoes  on 
the  same  field  four  years,  but  the  lice 
come  every  year.  I  have  another  lot  of 
potatoes  close  by  the  field  mentioned,  but 
they  do  not  come  on  that  lot.  On  the  14- 
acre  field  the  lice  come  on  the  blossoms. 
They  clip  the  blossoms  off  first,  then  they 
crawl  right  under  the  leaves  of  the  po¬ 
tatoes  and  suck  the  juice  out  of  the 
leaves.  The  leaves  curl,  turn  black  and 
die,  as  if  they  were  burned  by  Paris  green. 
Sometimes  there  are  as  many  as  400  or 
500  lice  on  each  hill  of  potatoes.  There 
are  two  kinds  of  the  lice,  red  and  green. 
The  red  lice  are  rather  woolly.  When 
the  lice  come  they  seem  to  come  all  at 
once.  They  cannot  be  killed  by  a  spray, 
as  they  are  under  the  leaves.  After  they 
check '  the  potatoes  in  growth  they  die 
themselves.  Do  the  lice  hatch  out  from 
eggs?  It  seems  to  me  as  if  the  soil  is 
infested  with  them.  If  the  soil  was  not 
infested,  why  is  it  that  they  attack  the 
14-acre  lot  every  year,  and  do  not  go  on 
the  other?  Last  Fall  when  I  was  out  in 
the  field  hoeing  there  were  thousands  of 
ants  and  ant  eggs  in  the  ground.  The 
ants  seemed  to  be  covering  the  eggs  deep¬ 
er  into  the  ground.  Do  you  think  that 
the  ants  might  convey  the  eggs  which  in 
the  Spring  or  July  would  hatch  out  the 
lice?  The  lice  are  most  common  in  the 
month  of  July.  They  do  not  stay  long  ; 
only  about  one  week.  I  think  that  it  is 
the  same  way  with  lice  as  with  potato 
bugs.  If  the  potato  bugs  are  not  thor¬ 
oughly  killed  year  after  year  they  are 
more  common  every  year.  I  do  not  think 
that  there  is  any  method  of  controlling 
them.  There  seem  to  be  more  lice  year 
after  year.  *  F.  s. 
The  correspondent,  F.  S.,  describes  the 
pink  and  green  potato  aphid  very  clearly, 
and  also  realizes  fully  the  difficulties  of 
the  problem.  iSo  far  as  we  know,  at  the 
Stalk  Borer  Burrowing  in  a  Plant  Stem 
present  time,  ants  do  not  take  the  eggs 
of  this  aphid  into  their  nests  and  care 
for  them  during  the  Winter.  On  the 
contrary,  the  eggs  of  this  potato  aphid 
are  deposited  in  the  Fall  on  rose  bushes, 
where  they  remain  during  the  Winter. 
All  the  evidence  we  have  concerning  the 
life  history  of  this  aphid  points  to  the 
fact  that  roses  are  the  necessary  alter¬ 
nate  host  plant  of  this  insect ;  and  if  all 
of  the  roses,  say  within  one  mile  of  the 
potatoes,  were  destroyed  there  would  be 
no  trouble  from  the  lice.  In  fact,  Dr. 
Patch  of  Maine,  who  has  studied  this 
potato  aphid  more  thoroughly  than  any¬ 
one  else  in  this  country,  has  introduced 
to  the  potato  growers  of  Maine  the  slo¬ 
gan,  “No  roses  within  one  mile  of  the 
potato  field.”  Di\  Patch  has  shown  that 
the  aphids,  hatching  in  the  Spring  from 
the  eggs  on  the  rose  bushes,  do  not  appear 
to  reach  potato  fields  and  infest  them 
seriously  if  such  fields  are  one  mile  or 
more  from  all  rose  bushes.  It  is  con¬ 
ceivable  that  if  all  rose  bushes  could  be 
destroyed  there  would  be,  thereafter,  no 
potato  aphids. 
Nicotine  sulphate  at  the  rate  of  one 
pint  to  100  gallons  of  water  will  kill  this 
insect  very  readily  when  the  aphids  are 
actually  hit  with  the  liquid.  It  is  doubt¬ 
ful,  however,  if  a  field  of  potatoes  badly 
infested  with  lice  which  are  hiding  with¬ 
in  the  curled  leaves  can  be  effectively 
sprayed.  Certainly,  if  any  attempt  is 
made  to  spray  for  this  aphid  the  applica¬ 
tions  should  be  made  during  the  early 
stages  of  infestation,  and  should  be  re¬ 
peated  at  short  intervals  in  order  to  keep 
the  insect  in  check,  glenn  w.  herrick. 
The  Common  Stalk  Borer 
This  seems  to  be  a  season  favorable  to 
the  development  of  a  rather  unusual  va¬ 
riety  of  insect  pests.  Several  borers  in 
corn  and  tomatoes  have  shown  up  in 
abundance  this  year,  one  of  which  is  the 
common  stalk  borer.  The  rather  for- 
midable  scientific  name  of  this  rascally 
borer  is  Papaipema  nitella.  We  “bug 
men”  have  to  have  some  name  by  which 
we  can  distinguish  one  stalk  borer  from 
another,  and  so  we  pick  out  good,  long, 
unpronounceable  ones  that  no  one  else 
would  possibly  think  of  using. 
The  adult  of  this  stalk  borer  is  a  hand¬ 
some,  dark-colored  moth  with  wings  that 
spread  about  1%  in-  from  tip  to  tip.  The 
mother  moth  lays  her  globular,  brownish 
eggs  in  the  Fall  on  such  plants  as  rag¬ 
weed,  dock,  pigweed  and  burdock.  In  the 
Spring  these  hatch,  and  the  caterpillars 
burrow'  into  the  stems  of  the  w'eeds,  or  if 
corn,  tomatoes  or  potatoes  are  near  by, 
the  caterpillars  will  go  to  these  cultivated 
plants  and  bore  into  the  stems.  The 
caterpillars  soon  kill  the  plants,  especially 
if  the  latter  are  young.  When  the  cater¬ 
pillars  become  gi'own,  each  changes  to  a 
pupa  in  its  burrow,  and  in  September  and 
October  the  moths  appear  ready  to  de¬ 
posit  their  eggs  on  the  stalks  of  the  weeds 
mentioned. 
There  is  no  effective  w’ay  of  getting  at 
the  borers  except  possibly  in  some  cases 
the  stems  may  be  carefully  slit  length¬ 
wise  w'ith  a  sharp  knife  and  the  borer 
killed.  This  is  apt,  however,  to  injure  the 
plant,  and  besides  it  is  too  uncertain  and 
laborious,  especially  where  many  plants 
are  infested. 
Since  the  insect  lives  on  ragweed,  dock 
and  pigweed  gi’owing  about  the  borders 
of  gardens  and  fields,  these  weeds  should 
be  carefully  and  entirely  destroyed,  and 
prevented  from  making  any  growth  any¬ 
where  near  the  garden.  This  is  the  only 
effective  way  to  treat  this  pernicious 
borer,  and  to  prevent  it  from  developing. 
The  watchw'ord  is,  then,  clean  culture 
and  destruction  of  all  weeds  around  and 
near  the  borders  of  the  garden,  both  in 
Fall  and  Spring.  glenn  w.  herrick. 
Stalk-borer  in  Dahlias 
I  am  sending  two  pieces  of  Dahlia 
tops,  w'hich  I  have  cut  from  my  plants, 
and  in  each  you  will  notice  is  a  little 
striped  worm  which  is  going  thi-ough 
every  plant  I  have.  They  start  in  any¬ 
where  on  the  side  of  stem  and  go  right 
through  to  the  top  and  ruin  the  plant. 
What  is  the  w’orm,  and  what  do  they 
come  from?  What  can  I  do  to  prevent 
their  coming?  Will  spraying  do  any  good, 
and  what  should  I  use?  g.  w.  E. 
East  Noi'thport,  N.  Y. 
The  worm  boi-ing  into  these  Dahlias  is 
the  stalk-borer,  which  attacks  a  variety 
of  plants.  The  adult  is  a  gray  moth ; 
the  eggs  are  laid  in  the  Fall  near  suitable 
food  plants,  and  hatch  the  next  Spring. 
The  worm  often  bores  into  a  stalk,  and 
then  bores  out  again,  attacking  another 
stalk.  'Its  presence  is  shown  by  an  en¬ 
trance  hole,  with  castings  thrown  out. 
The  plant  often  wilts  at  the  tip.  No 
spraying  is  helpful,  the  only  direct  con 
trol  measure  being  the  removal  of  all  in¬ 
fested  stalks  as  soon  as  noticed;  Certain 
weeds,  especially  burdock  and  ragweed, 
are  native  food  plants,  and  these  should 
be  cut  away  and  destroyed  wherever  pos¬ 
sible.  Clearing  up  crop  remnants  is  de¬ 
sirable,  and  it  is  possible  that  late  Fall 
cultivation  would  discourage  hatching  of 
some  eggs.  Tidying  the  garden  in  Fall  Is 
not  only  a  matter  of  neatness ;  it  aids 
greatly  in  the  control  of  insects  and  dis¬ 
eases. 
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“I’m  awfully  deaf,”  apologized  the  duch¬ 
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