WAR AGAINST INSECT PESTS.

Colonist, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4174, 25 June 1885, Page 4

WAR AGAINST INSECT PESTS.

The Royal Agricultural Society have a common sense method of making the. farming and gardening classes acquainted with the real character ol the insects that become injurious to the vegetation. They have an entomologist of long practical experience, a lady too, Miss E. A.Ormerod. She reports regularly to the. Society, describing and illustrating such insects as become pests. The reports are published by Birupkin, Marshall and Co., London, at Is 6d. In the last report to hand the grubs of the DADDYLONGLEGS (Tipula oleracea) are described as being extensively prevalent and numerous during the past year. The mildness of the winter of 1883-84 enabled these mischievous grubs to get to work early, and they did much damage to the winter wheat in some districts, especially where wheat followed clover or ryegrass. Hand picking, hoeing, and the application of nitrate of soda were found most serviceable in reducing the number of the grubs. Boiling did very little good. The best means of CLEARING A FIELD infested with the pests, however, is by cultivating it frequently previous to sowing, and so exposing fchem to rooks, starlings, and other insectivorous birds. Of course, this treatment is not available in the case of clover lea, which farmers would be very unwilling to break up in preparation for wheat, which loves a solid furrow. "Where flowers or vegetables are seen to be dwindling, two or more of these 'grubs may frequently be found by drawing the earth away from the roots two or three inches from the surface of the soil. With respect to the com thrips, which suck away the juices of wheat and oats, causing shrivelled grain, nothing can be done after the attack has commenced; but the insect may be attacked previous to or during its hibernation by deeply ploughing fields infested with it, by dressing the surface with salt, by removing waste pieces of wild grass or other means of shelter; Similarly with the WHEAT MIDGE (Cecidomyia tritici) and its larva, the fed maggot, the most useful preventives are methods of treatment which will destroy the grubs in their shelter, such as the collection and burning of stubble roots and infested chaff, deep ploughing, and the removal of grasses from thfi borders of cornfields. "Whether the sowing of seed infested with red maggot leads to future attacks of the midge is not clearly demonstrated, though it appears to be highly probable. A very curious experiment with WIREWORM is recorded. As the mustard crop is known to clear, off this destructive grub, it was supposed that dressing infested land with Indian rape cake (which is really mustard cake) would prove destructive to wireworm. To test the truth of this supposition two boxes of earth were sown with oats and 20 wireworms were put into each. The soil in one box was well manured with Indian rape cake, while the other had none. The result was that the oats in the former box nourished exceedingly, and were scarcely touched by the wire worms, whereas the oats in the other box were a great deal injured. It was thought that the grubs in the rape manured box wore dead; : but on investigation it was found that , they were fat and well, while those ?in ■; the other box had developed as usual into click beetles. So the cake prolonged the life of the pests in its larval stage. This peculiar result, Miss Ormerod points out, should be tested by further experiments before it is considered an established fact. During the last ;: few years mangel plants have suffered from wholesome attacks of the maggot of the BEET FLY (Anthomyia betce), not known to be at all commonly troublesome before 1880. The maggot attacks the leaves, often nearly or quite destroying the crop. Thorough autumn cultivation and the free use..of fertilisers and salt.are the best preventives ; but when an attack takes place the plantmay be sprinkled , with a mixture made ..as. follows :— Boil together eight partsvof water to ( one of soft soap; andhalf fill ordinary wine bottles with the lye thus made. , Stand the bottles in boiling water, - pour into each two gills of paraffin, < fill up with boiling lye,- and store ' away for use., "When required v, bottle ] of the mixtuie is poured in a four- | gallon watering-pot, so that the ( proportion of paraffin to water is half j a gill (a wine-glass) to h the gallon. n

.Greater strength than this would injure the tender leaves of the mangel plant. The mixture , will be found useful for' the destruction of aphides and other insect pests of the field or garden. '