Insects Affeci'mg the Straicberry. 75 



species of the chestnut-brown May beetles, or June beetles or dor-bugs, as 

 they are variously called ; that the grub lives in the ground, feeding on the' 

 roots of vegetation for about three years; that it emerges as a beetle in May 

 or June, and that in this stage it feeds on the leaves of various fruit and or- 

 namental trees, often defoliating them when it becomes very abundant. All 

 fruit-growers know, too, that the strawberry is not exempt from its attacks, 

 but that the roots of this plant are often destroyed by it to a degree to im- 

 pair seriously the value of the plantation. 



Fig. IG. M.\.Y Beetle, White Gi:ub {Lachnosfcrna fusca, Frohl) : I. Pupa in it>- eartlien cell ; 

 •2. Larva; 3, 4. Beetle, side and back view. 



This is perhaps the most unsatisfactory insect with which the strawberry- 

 grower has to deal, offering the fewest' opportunities for effective attack. It 

 is true that in the beetle stage large numbers may be destroyed by the use 

 of lights and reflectors, placed above tubs of water into which the beetles 

 may fall, this trap being rendered more efficient if the water is covered with 

 a thin film of kerosene ; but unless this method is generally and continu- 

 ously used by an entire community, and throughout a term of years, it can 

 have no great effect upon the crops of the individual fruit farmer. In the 

 egg stage this species is beyond our reach, and as a larva it can be attacked 

 only by repeated stirring of the ground, or by digging out the individual 

 grubs as their presence is manifested by the withering of the plants. No 

 applications to the soil have established more than a temporary reputation, 

 and all are probably nearly ineftective. A single preventive measure may, 

 however, be taken to advantage. In a region where the grub is prevalent, 

 ground should not be set to strawberries until these insects have been pretty 

 well cleared out of it by two or three years' cultivation in some hoed crop. 

 Further than this, reliance must probably be had, as far as we now know, 

 upon the rather crude and expensive method of the destruction of the grubs 

 by hand. 



