Show Out of Doors in the Wes t Sketches of Natural History in the Rocky Mountain c Edited by J. H. ft Nature Study in the i- F FIFTY FACTS ABOUT ALFALFA Its Principal Insect L Cultivation of the as suggested in the last does more than to increase its ground i culture destroys many of its insect There r- are many pests that injure this The of specialists enable us to make this number of reports and Headlie's Strong we call to says the grasshopper passes the winter in the soil in the egg that the army-worm and cut-worms remain in the soil over winter as the fall army-worm as a and that the blister-beetles are dependent upon a supply of grasshopper eggs for food during one necessary stage it is plain that thoroughly stirring the soil with a disk-harrow the spike-toothed just after the frost is out of the ground and before the plants begin to better in the late fall just before the ground if a proceeding would not injure the will go far towards controlling the insects During the when these insects are in the or when the alfalfa is attacked by clover leaf- Q ft m MUter alfalfa f- nat times natural groin pupa Band natural Bulletin B ol Enl U t ENEMIES OF THE OLD-TIME ana Gra mound-building prairie pocket the grower must resort to measures especially fitted to destroy the enemy in Insect Besides grasshoppers and the blister already the principal insect enemies of the alfalfa plant are garden leaf the three-lined blister the seed and the imported alfalfa leaf Web are small ning caterpillars that appear in July and August and bind up the plant with The eggs are laid on the food and the tiny begin as they grow constructing beneath which h they feed in Usually the grower does not no-jp tice the trouble until his plants are covered with webs fe- and seriously The first brood gets its growth in June and goes into the ground to The moths emerge in early July and lay eggs for the destructive July There are probably three broods of K the last passing the winter in silk-lined in the Forcible spraying with arsenate of lead mixture f. j to six pounds to fifty gallons of is The Army The army worm is a variable but usually dark-gray or dingy-black caterpillar marked above with three longitudinal and on each side with a slightly broader and darker It oe- 5 becomes a menace alfalfa growing by stripping the foliage from large It passes f- r winter in the soil as a half-grown other-f wise its life history is almost identical with that of the fall army The fall army worm is very similar in habits and general appearance to the true army It may be identified by a yellowish stripe down the middle of the back and a longitudinal pitch-colored stripe on each There are four black spots arranged in pairs along its The worm is about an inch in length and not quite so large as the true army The moth lays her eggs on the grass in clusters of about and these hatch in about ten There are two or three broods a The winter is passed the While the grasses and cereals form the favorite food of the army it also feeds on a large variety of other cultivated including of which it is peculiarly The remedies suggested are in harvesting the crop and rolling the or spraying a narrow strip of the crop just ahead of the traveling army with arsenate of or dusting it with paris besides the liberal distribution of poisoned bran The Cutworms are plump caterpillars from one and three fourths to two inches long when fully of dull gray or greenish generally marked with longitudinal oblique and with head and first segment reddish brown and The variegated cutworm is the most and does occasional damage to the crop during late It is a wide working on garden and greenhouse plants as well as on the foliage and fruit of It passes the winter as a larva in the emerging from winter quarters in the late It has three Poison sprays and bran mash have been found alfalfa sprayed with poison cannot safely be used for The Leaf Leafhoppers are small green or gray insects i when hop and fly swiftly about among the Several species do serious damage to young i They are usually called gray or green They do not consume the stems or but thrust their beaks into the leaves or tender shoots and suck the When they are the leaves turn yellow and the plants make no A of special as the insects are small and cannot jump very may be run on the ground with the front edge turned up just enough to avoid scraping up the It should be coated inside with coal because this substance will neither slop nor yet it quite sufficient to hold and kill Clover The clover is a dark-brown with a dark-brown ring on each It infests and eats the stacked giving it a mouldy appearance from the threads it Stacking in new places and the usual remedies are Clover-seed Clover-seed are four-winged whose grubs singly upon the forming tissue of the undergo their then emerge as adults through little round holes in the Formerly devoting their attention to the seed of red of recent years they have shown a for The female inserts her eggs in the young and the tiny grub consumes the growing The insect comes at a time when its work makes no noticeable difference in the appearance of the The life-history of the clover-seed fly is in- completely worked therefore no reliable measures can be The Common Red The mound-building ants often locate in alfalfa They clear away the vegetation from a small area and construct their mound in the They excavate extensive series of chambers with connecting galleries reaching far down into the in many- cases ten or more Above excavations they pile the mined A and cement it together to form a mound ranging from a few inches to two feet in honeycombed with chambers and deep underground A layer composed of coarse particles from one-half to one inch in thickness is put over the top of the The sides of the mound are pierced by from one to three or more funnel-shaped openings the The entire colony lives and reproduces within these ever-dark chambers and It consists of a limited number of males and fertile females in large of an immense number of when the weather is the workers go into the field between and 9 in the They return to the nest about noon and remain there until the hottest part of the day is past then come forth and work until On cloudy days they do not return at Just before sundown a small force of workers collects little pebbles and other coarse particles like those of which the gravelly is and stop up the opening so carefully that one must look a long time to discover their On the approach of a. a large force is employed and the gateways are closed in but when it has they are reopened and the ants return to their Kansas To destroy these invert a washtub over the and place under it a dish containing carbon then pack the soil close about the edge of the making it The heavy vapor sinks into the openings in the anthill and destroys the These ants are just beginning their season's A visit to the bench lands on May the day after the showed this ant an allied species a trifle longer with black beginning to bring out the pellets of earth and the small pebbles which form the gravel mounds of the red and the earth mounds of the red and black Each ant carried a pellet of earth or a pebble in his mandibles and after finding a safe place near the galley would deposit it in a comical and sudden and then would gravely return to the earth The Alfalfa The worst enemy of all is the The detailed investigation of this pest by Titus of the Agricultural College and the reports of Webster of the government supply the notes here given f this new and destructive These investigators report that the insect now occurs in Salt Utah and and threatens eventually to reach all ur alfalfa growing It spreads rapidly in e adult or beetle stage by flying in spring and and by being carried with articles shipped from au and on in wagons and traveling through the places where it alfalfa is one the snout ir L j aWS to a It is less than n of an inch and brown in It lays its yellow one-third the size of a the or stems of hatch m from seven to sixteen days into yellowish larva little larger in diameter than a coarse thread and about as long as across an ordinary As it eats and grows it becomes finally reaching a dark green with a white stripe along its and a black After the last its skin for the fourth it is a fourth of an inch long and about one-third as Then it leaves the alfalfa and in from two to ten hours spins its cocoon near the among dead leaves or other In this globular nest of pure white the larva lies slightly curled for about two days and thus reaches pupa or resting At first it is pale growing darker as it changes into the adult form of a After from six to fourteen it cuts out of the cocoon and comes forth a pale brown insect with a beak and wing covers of the weevil soon changing to a darker The adult beetles feed chiefly on the stem by making punctures with their but other worse punctures are the slits which the females also with their for laying their eggs in the Into this slit the or is and as as twenty-eight eggs have been found inserted through a single |