leaf, and, increasing very rapidly, will do considerable injury before its presence is discovered; therefore we must examine the underside of the leaves frequently. The strewing of chopped tobacco stems in quantities around the pots is the best way to ward off this enemy. Calceolarias require an abundance of water until well grown; but as little moisture as possible should be tolerated on the benches, when they are in full flower, otherwise the flowers will get spotted very quickly. Shading is very necessary when they are in flower, their beauty being thereby preserved to double the time it would otherwise continue.

A vast deal more could be said in regard to cultural and other details in connection with these two plants, but in view of your possible weariness over the subject, I deem it best to stop.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. Finlayson brought with him several cineraria plants in pots. Some of them had few, but rather long and straggling branches; they had been supplied with all needed plant food, water, heat, light, and ventilation, and had been protected from all insect pests. These plants, he said, showed their natural habit of growth, as they had not been nipped, cut back, or otherwise pruned. He then brought forward other plants, which he said were of the same age as those first shown, and had received the same treatment in all respects mentioned, except that these had been judiciously nipped early, and whenever it was judged necessary. This treatment caused them to throw out more branches, which were shorter than those on the nature-trained plants, but were more stocky, and the plants were more symmetrical. They would also produce more flowers than could be grown on the other plants. He next showed a plant in bloom, saying that it had been nipped back twice, which made it a shapely and good plant, and that the variety was a good one. He called attention to another flower which he condemned as a poor one, as he could see through it between the petals. If the flowers are zoned, the zones should be well defined, as all colors should be when more than one occurs in a flower. One plant bore flowers in which the central or disk florets were yellow, making a fine contrast with the crimson ray florets or so-called petals. He said that the plants shown were all seedlings. In reply to a question as to the probable color of flowers on seedlings from the seeds which grew in one capsule or seed

receptacle, Mr. Finlayson could not say that one would get the same color as the parent flower, but sometimes they are thus reproduced. The central or disk florets are perfect flowers, but the ray florets are all of but one sex.

Plants are never used a second season. They cannot be grafted successfully; even if the union of scion and stock could be effected, the stem is so brittle that a very light wind would be liable to break it at the junction.

Regarding the possibility of growing cinerarias in a north-east shady corner, Mr. Finlayson thought it could probably be done, but he doubted the advisability of a trial, as the result would generally be far from satisfactory.

The announcement for the next Saturday was a paper on "Some Insects Injurious to Vegetation," by John G. Jack, of the Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain.

BUSINESS MEETING.

SATURDAY, March 3, 1894.

An adjourned meeting of the Society was holden at eleven o'clock, Vice President FRANCIS H. APPLETON in the chair.

A letter from C. J. Pennock, Secretary of the American Carnation Society, was read, accepting the offer, by this Society, of one of its halls for the meeting of the American Carnation Society in February, 1895.

Frederick A. Blake, of Rochdale, was proposed by O. B. Hadwen, as an Annual Member of the Society.

The following named persons, having been recommended by the Executive Committee, were on ballot duly elected members of the Society:

PHILIP A. CHASE, of Lynn,

JOHN C. COBB, of Milton,

Col. WILLIAM L. CHASE, of Brookline,
AUGUSTUS H. KELLEY, of East Boston,

CHARLES A. LORING, of Reading,

MARSHALL F. EWELL, of Marshfield Hills.

The meeting was then dissolved.

MEETING FOR DISCUSSION.

NOTES ON SOME INJURIOUS INSECTS.

By JOHN G. JACK, Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain.

The subject of injurious insects is so broad and many sided, that it is not easy to select particular points for a short review, without seeming to neglect others equally important; because every person naturally regards those insects which attack his particular plants or crops as deserving of the most attention.

The

The ravages of some species of insects appeal to, and directly or indirectly affect, almost everybody over a wide area; as in the cases of the Potato Beetle (Doryphora decem-lineata), and the Tent Caterpillar (Clisiocampa Americana and C. sylvatica). different species of insects which derive their sustenance from plants may be numbered by tens of thousands in North America and Europe; but very few of them are likely to attract the attention of people who are not entomologists. In the United States, for instance, there are recorded more than five hundred kinds of insects which feed upon the oaks, and there are undoubtedly hundreds of others which have not been studied.

While we have many kinds of insects which may be called standard pests, or which are pretty constantly abundant and injurious to certain plants, we can never be sure from what quarter a new depredator may appear, or what hitherto healthy plant may be afflicted with an enemy not recognized as previously affecting, or seriously injuring it.

It sometimes happens that an insect, once considered rare, suddenly becomes conspicuously abundant and destructive for a season, or longer, and then it may almost entirely disappear from notice for an indefinite time. An insect hitherto regarded as common, may become a great rarity, or even extinct.

The commonly injurious insects may, in the course of nature, be much lessened for a time, by various agencies. The Clisiocampa Americana or Tent Caterpillars of early summer, for instance, hatch from the eggs very early in the spring, and the young larvæ may be largely destroyed by late frosts, or a period of cold, wet weather. An almost complete cessation of injuries by a species of borer, which was destroying immense numbers of conifers in the forests of West Virginia a year or two ago, is only accounted

for by the severity of the preceding winter which, it is supposed, killed the insects.

Certain kinds of birds are fond of particular species of insects, and if a large flock of these should pass through an infested region at the proper time, a great diminution of that special insect pest would be the natural result.

Predatory insects and natural parasites are great aids in preventing the too great increase of injurious species, sometimes waging a war almost of extermination against them. Occasionally bacterial or fungal diseases may cause widespread destruction among insect tribes, as well as among higher animals.

Sometimes we find one species of insect supplanting another which had much the same habit and fed on similar plants. The common White, or Cabbage, Butterfly (Pieris rape), was first landed from Europe, at Quebec, and as it has spread southward and westward, the native white butterflies have become quite rare in many regions. The imported Cabbage Butterfly itself is not so abundant and destructive as it was at first, because its numbers have been greatly reduced by a minute parasitic fly which has followed it.

In recent years the ravages of insects have become more and and more noticeable, and have necessarily received greater attention from cultivators. The destruction of the native wild plants upon which indigenous insects originally fed; the increased areas under cultivation, and the consequent abundance of food supply of certain kinds; the improvement and diversity of cultivated plants are all factors which have constantly tended to attract insects from their native waste places and woods, to our gardens, field crops, and orchards. Very often, as our population has increased, certain kinds of valuable insect eating birds and other animals have become scarcer.

With active immigration and importation, we must expect also to receive and naturalize more species of those insects which are natives of, and are troublesome in, other countries.

Among the most conspicuous of such immigrants already settled among us, and now well known in the different branches of horti culture and agriculture, we have the Codling Moth (Carpocapsa pomonella), the Oyster-shell Bark-louse (Mytilaspis pomorum), affecting the apple and other allied fruits; the Fluted Scale (Icerya Purchasi), destructive to trees of the Citrus group, and others, in

California; the imported Currant-borer (Ægeria tipuliformis), and the Currant-worm (Nematus ventricosus), affecting both red currants and gooseberries; the Asparagus Beetle (Crioceris asparagi); the Gypsy Moth (Ocneria dispar), and the Leopard Moth (Zeuzera pyrina), which has got a foothold in New Jersey, and is destructive to elms by boring into the branches.

Our orchid growers received the Cattleya Fly (Isosoma orchidearum) through importation, and within a few years cattle raisers have become familiar with the Horn Fly (Hæmatobia serrata), which is spreading over the country.

In these notes I intend to refer chiefly to a number of insects, mostly very common, about which I am most often questioned by residents of this vicinity.

Those insects which, instead of feeding externally, pass the most mischievous time of their lives in boring within the tissues of plants, offer one of the most difficult classes to deal with and keep in subjection, if once allowed to become abundant. In order to combat them with best results the life history of each species should be known. After they have entered and begun boring in the wood or stem of the plant, it is rarely possible to get at them with insecticides. Probing for the larvæ in the stems, or cutting out the affected parts, remain as cures. But, if possible, we should anticipate the disease by destroying the adult insects, before their eggs are laid, or otherwise prevent their deposition of eggs. Besides the direct injury to the plant by borers, the holes made by them are openings for the entrance of destructive fungi and disease-laden moisture.

One of the most notable and troublesome of these tree destroying pests, is the Locust Borer (Cyllene Robinia), which makes it a difficult matter to grow the valuable and beautiful locusts or Robinias in some localities. The trunks and larger branches of trees are sometimes so thoroughly honeycombed by these borers that they are liable to break off in any strong wind. If we carefully examine the bark in the latter part of August and during September, we are likely to find these handsome, brown and yellow banded, wasp-like beetles laying oval, dull white eggs, in crevices in the bark, and especially about old wounds.

These eggs hatch in a week or two and the young larvæ eat their way into the bark and towards the interior. They are yet