16 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



should keep lliem from developing on the grass and other plants that they 

 live on when they can not get into the trees. Mr. Rood's method of deal- 

 ing with them is sure, but rather laborious, making a man work night 

 and day. Experiments were tried in poisoning the cut-worms, that 

 proved quite satisfactory. Bran, given a green tinge, with Paris green, 

 wtis dropped in little bunches around the base of the tree. The cut- 

 worms ate it readily, both as they passed it in starting up the tree and as 

 they came back hungry from their vain effort to get beyond the band. 

 The next morning more than half of the cut-worms would be found hang- 

 ing to the bark, limp and dead, or in the same condition on the ground, in 

 some cases ninety per cent, were killed. The other poisoning experiment 

 was in spraying apple twigs with Paris green and placing them around 

 where the cut-worms would find them near the bands. This served as a 

 good deco}'' and killed about the same number that the bran did. If one 

 does not prune his orchard until this time, he can easily cut some fresh 

 twigs every few days and apply poison to them. Quite likely the poi- 

 soned bran will need renewing frequently, also. Bran with and without 

 sweetening was tried, but the cut-worms seemed to eat one as well as the 

 other. 



JUNE BEETLES. 



As the forest trees were leafing there was considerable complaint of 

 leaves being injured and torn off from shade trees in Jackson, Grand 

 Rapids, and other places. Trees on our own college grounds were 

 troubled in the same way, and looked very much as though torn in a hail 

 storm. This trouble was caused by two or more species of June beetle. 

 If one would go out under the trees just at dusk he would hear a beetle 

 buzz here and there under the tree as it came out of the ground where it 

 had been through the day. As more of the beetles came out and flew into 

 the tree tops there would be a hum, something similar to that produced 

 by a swarm of bees. This hum would become so noticeable that one could 

 hear it when man}' rods away, and his attention would be attracted by it. 

 On looking ujj into the tree top with the bright, clear sky for a back- 

 ground, one could see great numbers of the beetles humming and thump- 

 ing about the limbs, but always well up in the tree toward the top. Their 

 work in the trees was noticeable for about two weeks. The most common 

 species this year was a small, hairy June beetle, Lachnosterna tristis. This 

 species would come very early in the evening and then later it would be 

 joined by our common June beetle, Lachnosterna fusca. These June 

 beetles are the mature form of what is known to us as the white grub that 

 we so often find among the grass roots in old meadows and pastures. The 

 life of June beetles is spent mostly in the grub state, under the ground, 

 and it is only for a short time that they are above ground as beetles. They 

 seldom are so numerous as they have been this season, and are rarely 

 numerous enough to do great harm. Many experiments have been tried 

 on the beetles while feeding on the foliage of trees, but none of them have 

 I)roven satisfactory. The arsenites, the remedy that we should expect to 

 find effectual, are verv slow in their action. 



