12 ASPARAGUS. 
Mr. Wratislaw, after various observations, further noted :— 
“T used daily to go carefully round the beds with finger and 
thumb, and roll or squeeze the grubs’’; and this treatment appears to 
have checked attack, for he further remarked:—‘‘The Asparagus beds, 
which at one time looked dying or dead, are now, since rain came, 
beginning to throw fresh fronds, and so recover below, and higher 
green fronds pushing up, so that the plants and roots will not perish 
as was at first thought likely, though no doubt they must have 
received a severe check. The same was happening to some beds 
of my brother’s, . . . but ‘finger and thumb’ saved their looking 
anything like so bad, and now they look as good as ever.” 
The above remarks show how much may be done by careful hand- 
picking of the grubs; and the following note, sent me on August 30th, 
gives some details as to clearing the beetles also by hand-picking. A 
clearance on three days (presumably at leisure time) got rid of 436 
beetles, which in moderate garden cultivation would make some 
amount of difference in impending egg-laying, and suggests that even 
on a large scale of cultivation hand-picking the beetles might be 
worth attending to. Mr. Wratislaw noted that the beetles on alarm 
usually fell straight down, or made a kind of spring to some adjoining 
small branch, and if they fell to the ground they lay quiet for a minute 
or two, but from the pale markings on their wing-cases they were 
easily distinguishable for recapture. 
PREVENTION AND Remepy.—Very much may be done by moderate 
care to check attack at its commencement. Cutting off the shoots 
which are noticeably badly infested with eggs is a sure way of lessening 
infestation. 
Hand-picking of the grubs is difficult on account of their strong 
powers of holding fast by their tails, but a little soot or salt, or other 
substance obnoxious to the grub, held in the fingers at the same time, 
has been found to help to make them loosen hold. But where there is 
no objection either on account of the unpleasantness of the operation, 
or of the smearing of the shoots with dirt, Mr. Wratislaw’s plan of 
crushing the grubs with finger and thumb would be perfectly effectual. 
Syringing with water warm enough to make the grubs fall off, yet not 
hot enough to hurt the leafage, is an excellent plan (which I noticed 
some years ago in my ‘Manual’). Most of the grubs fall down when 
they feel the warm water, and the rest of them on the shoot being 
sharply jarred ; and if soot or some other deterrent dressing is thrown 
over the grubs when on the ground and still wet, I have found this 
treatment prevent any return of the grubs to the plants. A large 
number of beds may soon be dressed by a man and boy going round 
together, one to syringe, and the other to jar the stems and throw soot 
or whatever may be preferred on the fallen grubs. 
