INSECTS INJURIOUS TO CORN. 267 



As common and widespread and as injurious as these white grub 

 are, they are among our most unsatisfactory insects to combat, and we 

 do not yet know of any first class and satisfactory method of deaHng 

 with it. We cannot kill them in the ground by any of our ordinar}' farm 

 methods. We must resort very largely to starving the insects out of a 

 field by not allowing them to have access to the proper amount of food 

 plants. A good deal of good, however, can be done by turning hogs into 

 the field during the spring, summer and fall, but no benefit can be de- 

 rived whatever from this procedure by turning the hogs in during the 

 winter, as the white grub are then found far below the reach of these 

 animals. It is well known that hogs are very fond of white grub, not 

 only as white grub, but as pupae and adults, and will root about the roots 

 of grass and other plants in search of these insects and feed upon them. 

 It is also a good plan to allow hogs to follow the plow when turning sod 

 land. Good results have also followed the method of trying to capture 

 the adult beetles. 



It is well known that these insects will fly early in the evening to 

 various trees in order to pair and feed upon the leaves, and by jarring 

 these trees many May beetles may be gathered on a sheet and thus de- 

 stroyed. But this should be done when the beetles first appear in the 

 spring, as, if one delays this procedure, the beetles will be continually 

 laying their eggs and may have finished before the work of capturing 

 the beetles is undertaken. 



There seems to be a widespread opinion that trap lanterns of various 

 kinds are efifectual methods of capturing May and June beetles, and that 

 a great deal of good can be done by putting trap lanterns through the 

 fields or other convenient places. This, however, is not so. The de- 

 ception comes from the fact that a great many beetles are thus captured, 

 but on examining these beetles one finds that they are practically all 

 males, and that the few females that are taken have nearly all deposited 

 their eggs. Last spring we ran trap lanterns, and I will give you briefly 

 the capture from one trap lantern, which will serve as an illustration on 

 this point. In fourteen days continuous running of the trap we captured 

 286 males and only 12 females of fusca, and 811 males of gibbosa and 

 only 16 females. Hence one can readily see that the use of trap lanterns 

 for lessening these insects is of no practical value whatever, as the in- 

 sects deposit their eggs in spite of the trap lanterns. 



The best method of fighting these insects is for the people in a 

 neighborhood to turn their efforts to lessening the numbers of these 

 beetles early in spring, when they first appear, by capturing them in 

 sheets, as above suggested, and also by the methods of farm procedure 

 which I gave above. 



