74 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETABLES 



or "June bugs" in the North, from their occurrence in numbers 

 in these months in these different regions. Injury is by no 

 means confined to the white grubs, but can often be laid to the 

 account of the beetles, but the latter are most destructive to 

 shade and fruit trees. 



White grubs or "grub-worms," with wireworms and cutworms 

 were the original inhabitants of the soil before the advent of 

 civilized man. They lived in our open prairies when America 

 was still a wilderness, and they continue to dwell in our grass 

 lands, meadows, fields and gardens and repel all attempts toward 

 their permanent removal. The farmer who imprudently plants 

 corn or potatoes in fields that have long laid waste and become 

 grown up with weeds and grasses, or where strawberries have 

 been the previous season, does so at the risk of losing his crop. 

 The problem of how to destroy them and to protect the crops 

 from their ravages is a subject requiring constant and scientific 

 treatment. Injury appears to be most noticeable to corn, 

 grasses, small grains, beets, potatoes and other root crops, and 

 strawberries, but the roots of young shade, fruit and forest trees 

 are also attacked. 



As with insects of similar habits, white grubs and May 

 beetles are liable to considerable fluctuation of numbers in dif- 

 ferent localities and years. This is most noticeable after crop 

 rotation, particularly, as might be inferred from what has al- 

 ready been said, where susceptible crops are planted in grass 

 lands. Attack may commence from the time the plant sends 

 out roots, and continue for a much longer time, as these insects 

 pass two or three years from the egg until they reach the adult 

 condition. When the larvae are present in great numbers at 

 the roots, the plants soon die and whole crops are ruined. 



In a general way white grubs may be described as large, soft 

 white or yellowish grubs, with wrinkled bodies, sparsely covered 

 with fine hairs, having yellowish or brownish heads with strong 

 nian(lil)les, three pairs of distinct legs on the fore part of the 



