PEA INSECTS. The pea in Europe is at tacked by seven species of weevils, by the lary of seven species of moths, and by two species of flies. In the United States there are probably twenty species of insects which are especially in jurious to this crop. The pea-weevil (Bruchus pisorum) is very abundant. It probably origi nated in Oriental regions, is scarcely known in the colder countries of Europe and Canada, but is very abundant throughout the United States—so abundant, in fact, that in eating green peas we consume a larva or grub with nearly every pea. The beetles appear on the vines when the peas are in blossom, and the eggs are deposited singly upon the surface of the pods. The larva bores through the pod into a pea, and when full-grown transforms to pupa, the adults issuing at varying periods from the end of July until late in the autumn, frequently in the Northern States remaining in the pea until the following spring. when many are planted in the seed. The insect hibernates in the adult condi tion and has only a single generation each year. It does not breed in dried peas, and the new generation for another year is dependent upon the beetles which are eontaintd in planted seed or which escape from the store-room. The sim plest and most effective remedy consists in hold ing seed peas in a closed receptacle over one year ; the beetles which issue die without being able to lay their eggs in the field. Late planting is also frequently effective, and weevilly peas may be made safe by fumigation with bisulphid of carbon.
Certain of the blister-beetles are frequently in jurious to both beans and peas by devouring the leaves, particularly the ash-gray blister-beetle (Macrobasis unieolor), which also feeds upon other leguminous plants. The beetles are abun dant in June and July, and are handled by spray ing with Paris green or by driving them, in the early morning, into windrows of straw or hay, where they are burned. In their early stages these insects are beneficial by destroying the egg pods of grasshoppers. The maturing pods of
peas and co-peas and other leguminous plants are frequently damaged by the boll-worm or eorn-ear worm (larva of Heliothis armiger); and the young plants as they come from the ground are frequently damaged by eutworms.(See CUTWORM and OWLET MOTH.) The European pea-moth (Sentasia nigrieana) has been intro duced into Canada, where it has injured peas for a number of years. It is probably only a ques tion of time when it will make its appearance in the Northern United 1tates. A plant-bug (Haiti ens Uhleri) damages peas and beans in some of the Central States, and several species of leaf hoppers infest the plant.
The most serious enemy to the pea crop of re cent years has been the destructive green pea louse (Nectarophora destructon, which caused a loss of many hundreds of thousands of dollars tepea-growers in the United states during 1899 and 1900. During the first season of its abun dance it overran and laid waste fields of peas from Nova Scotia and Maine to Virginia and Maryland, as well as in neighboring States, de stroying about 50 per cent. of the crop. The loss during 1899 was estimated at 83,000,000, and during 1900, as early as June 15th. at 84. 000,000. The insect multiplies with great rapid ity, and in favorable seasons is always likely to do enormous damage. The remedies which have been employed are spraying with kerosene soap emulsion and the use of the brush and cultiva tor method. In the latter case, the peas have been grown in rows sufficiently wide apart to admit of a one-horse cultivator, and the lice are brushed from the plants with boughs of pine, the cultivator following immediately after wards and burying the lice. Early planting and very late planting have also been advised, but rotation of crops by which no leguminous crop immediately follows another one offers apparent ly the best chance of immunity. Consult: Chit tenden, Insects Injurious to Beans and Peas: and The Destructive Green Pea Louse (Depart ment of Agriculture. Washington. 1901).