BEAN APHIS
Aphis fabæ (pupa and female)
The Pea Siphon-Aphis (Siphonophora pisi, Kalt).—Among the aphides peculiar to vegetables this is one of the most common.
PEA SIPHON-APHIS
Siphonophora pisis
Our illustration shows the natural size and an enlarged figure of the greenish-winged and green-tinted wingless females, as produced, not from eggs, but alive and developed. This insect is occasionally very destructive to Pea crops.
American Blight, or Woolly Aphis, generally appears first on trees grafted on dwarfing stocks, particularly the bad forms of the Paradise Apple. Rapidly the mischief spreads, healthy trees become infested, and unless checked an orchard is speedily ruined. Andrew Murray says that in bad cases of American Blight it is sometimes necessary to root up and burn all the trees, and let the ground remain unplanted for a year or two. Fruit trees should be examined periodically for this pest, and immediately the woolly spots are detected small tainted boughs should be pruned away, and from the mainstems and large branches diseased spots can be pared off. The operation may need a bold and vigorous hand if the trees are to be saved, and it is important that every scrap should be burned. There is almost certain to be a further appearance of the Blight, which should be destroyed by one of the many remedies known to be effectual. Fir Tree Oil Insecticide has proved to be an excellent remedy. Gishurst Compound, in the proportion of eight ounces to a gallon of water, with sufficient clay added to render it adhesive, makes a capital winter paint for Apple trees. But there is no cheap remedy equal to soft soap for smothering American Blight in the crannies of the bark. The soap may be rubbed into the diseased spots, or as a wash it can be brushed into the boughs.
AMERICAN BLIGHT
Schizoneura lanigera
Our illustration shows a piece of Apple twig with the aphides and their woolly material natural size. The enlarged figures represent the winged female and the wingless larva of the Apple Blight Aphis (Schizoneura lanigera). The insect is deep purplish brown in colour, and the well-known bluish white cottony material naturally exudes from it.
The Carrot Fly (Psila rosæ, Fab.), with its larva, pupa, and perfect insect, is illustrated natural size and enlarged. The ochreous shining larvæ live upon the tap-roots of the Carrot, and by eating into them cause them to rot. In colour the body of the fly is an intensely dark greenish black, with a rusty ochreous head. The presence of the larvæ in the root is made known by the change in the colour of the leaves from green to yellow, and the attacked plants should be promptly forked out entire and burned.