Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883 Excerpt: ...found feeding upon the eggs. Two pecies have hitherto been recorded as feeding upon the eggs of G. xpretus. The egg parasite (Bceoneura famelica Say) which was figured in the tirst Commission reportt has proved quite common at Bosoawen, and next to the Carabid larvae, is, so far, the most efficient destroyer of the pggs of atlanis. REMEDIES. Destruction of eggs.--It has been demonstrated that the breaking up of the egg-pod and the exposure of the individual eggs to the influence of the weather proves fatal to the embryo, hence we have recommended harrowing the fields in late autumn or during any mild weather in early winter. In the light sandy soil which prevails around Boscawen, we strongly recommend this method in such fields as are in cultivation, and in which the eggs are thickly laid. As regards deep plowing in late fall and early winter, burying the eggs to a considerable depth, experience varies according to the nature of the soil and the depth of the plowing. But it is strongly to be recommended if done thoroughly, as it not only prevents the bulk of the young locusts from successfully hatching and reaching the surface, but the exceptional ones which survive the operation hatch so much later that they would not affect the first crop of hay. Destruction of young.--Of the many more or less successful devices for the destruction of the unfledged locusts which we have described in the Commission reports, we shall here mention only the most sucri'ssful and those which experience has shown can be used with excelA-ut results in New Hampshire. These are trapping pans for the use of oal-oil. Our remarks on this subject in treating of G. spretus may here e repeated, the portions thus repeated being in quotation marks: "Goal-oil.--The use of coal-oil and ...