ENTOMOLOGICAL NOTES FOR 1882

Extract

My removal from Yellow Springs, Ohio, to New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, has had the effect of breaking off the line of my entomological work, or at least throwing it into a rather different channel. Among the first results is a notice of the striking difference between the two places in regard to insect depredations. In my experience last year a great part of the time was occupied with fighting insects. The cherry weevil, the potato worm and beetle and the apple worm were the ringleaders; but after them came the blister beetles, the turnip flea, the corn worm, the squash bug, et multaalea. Here, at least during the present, or rather past season, the ravages of all these have been quite insignificant. Foremost stands the potato beetle. As soon as the young plants came up I followed my usual plan of picking them off and dropping them into a tin having a few spoonfuls of coal oil at the bottom. By this means they cause no trouble in crawling out again. Though the season was rainy, and therefore the opposite of the last, yet I found two applications of the poison dust (1 part of London purple and 60 parts of wood ashes) quite sufficient to keep the plants free from the young grubs. I am inclined, however, to recommend the use of plaster instead of ashes in a wet season. It seems to adhere better to the leaves when rain falls on them.