OCR Text |
Show THE SEVEXTEEX-YEAR LOCUST. The seventeen-year locust, an insect in-sect extremely interesting to naturalists, natural-ists, but thoroughly detested . by nurserymen and owners of orchards is due to appear in this country in large numbers in 1919. The real name of this, insect is the periodical cicada. It spends seventeen seven-teen years slowly developing underground under-ground in infested localities. Its emergence em-ergence in such localities every 17 years has been observed in this country coun-try every seventeen years since 1715. Enormous swarms will appear in parts of the northern states either in the last week of May or the first week of June. No one can fail to recognize their presence in the given localities, for they are a noisy and strenuous race. After five weeks the brief existance of the cicada ends in exhaustion and death. Considerable injury is done to young orchards and nursery trees by these insects. No young orchards should be set out this year until fall, when the danger from the swarm of cicadas is over. Trees already in growth 'should be treated with sprays and whitewashing at the time of cm-ergeance cm-ergeance of the cicadas. The southern states harbor broods of the thirteen-year cicada, which while similar in appearance and habits, ha-bits, is a separate and distinct species from the seventeen-year insect. |