The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-07-26
Potato Growers Are 1- Confident Bug Pest
 Is Nearly At An End

y The alarm which the presence of lice on potatoes in some sections, caused last week, has abated considerably. Timothy J. Long reported yesterday that growers in sections which had been visited by lice had left the po- tatoes, though the plants had not been sprayed to do away with the pests.A The belief of the growers who had reported was that as soon as the lice took on wings they flew from the plants, but whether they made use of their wings to fly rom one field to another, the growers did not know, but they reported as a certainty that they had left potato fields where they had been numerous.
 The Iouce is recognized as a suck ing instead of an eating pest such as the potato bug which can be killed by. paris green, arsenate of lead and Bordeaux. or Pyrox. Instead of eat, ing, it injects it's bill to the center of the stem of the leaf and sucks the juices from the plant and the only way that the 1ouse and other aphids can be killed is by use of nicotine solution that kills when the aphids come in contact with it. Black Leaf 40 is one of the most popular poisons for the killing of the sucking insects and pests.
 To have the poison effective in kill ing the louse and other pests, calls for spraying the under side of the leaves. This is not so much of a job
 when one has an angle nozzle which will get under the vines without nak- ing it necessity for one to stoop.
 Small growers, however, have not provided themselves with angle noz- zles which many of the larger grow CTS have, and consequent1y~th small growers whose potato vines have been infected with lice have had a back breaking job in spraying. To over come the shortage of the nicotine so- lutions many growers have boiled to- bacco stems and tobacco which they
 have bought in the stores, and have thus made up a nicotine solution which they mixed with whale oil soap. The plan adopted by the grow CTS who have not angle nozzles has !, been to drive two stakes in the how and then run a rope from one stake to the other so that the rope will turn | the vines over and with the vines thus turned they spray one side and when
 the entire row has been sprayed on
 ones ide the other side of the row Is
 given the same treatment.
 l The lice are white and long time
 observers in potato fields say they
 never before appeared in this section. They closely resemble hen lice, l though they are much larger. Their origin has not been determined by
 the experts. though there are some
 who are of the opinion they came to
 this section with the seed. Two diff i ferent men planted two different
 kinds of potato seed and each of them has the lice in one part of his potato field and each has the lice
 on the plants of the same seed, while other parts of their fields have not been attacked. This leads them to
 believe that the lice came with the seed The sunshine has had ma terial affect on potato fields that were infected by the lice and which had not been treated with nicotine [solution, but whether it is sunshine
 or the fact that the lice have taken
 on wings and flown away, it can be definitely said that fields which on Friday and Saturday looked decidely bad looked much better yesterday.
 Men who for years have been fa- J miliar with potato planting say. they
 never saw such heavy spotato foliage as is present this year. What this can be taken to indicate long time growers did not care ro predict when Aseen yesterday. Some said they p<<aal&