71 • 



the middle; elytra irregularly punctured; three or four obsolete, 

 ■elevated lines, of which the exterior one is largest, and colored by 

 a brown fillet which does not attain the tip ; a brown common 

 sutural line." 



KEMEDIES. 



These may be divided into natural and artificial ; and the last 

 may be again divided into preventive and applied. Under the first 

 head, or natural remedies, my first thought was that we must look 

 to the birds as aids in lessening the numbers of this beetle ; and in 

 an article prepared for the Prairie Farmer several birds were men- 

 tioned as feeding upon the family Chrysomelidse. The last clause 

 of Prof, Forbes' letter, as quoted in another place, dispels that idea 

 however; and as I do not know positively that any other insect 

 preys upon it, nothing can be said with any assurance under this 

 liead. It is probable that other insects do feed upon it ; in fact, Mr. 

 Webster has found some predaceous beetles under such circumstances 

 around hills of corn as to lead to the supposition that they were 

 after the Corn-root Worms. 



In a small fiiece of corn, such as a patch of sweet corn in the 

 garden, it is probable that some preparation distasteful to the beetles 

 might be so placed about the roots as to prevent eggs being depos- 

 ited ; but this would be impracticable in a large field where the corn 

 is mostly planted and cultivated by machinery. English gardeners 

 prevent destruction from insects i3y mixing a little soot with the 

 soil of each hill of whatever they plant, and this might be done 

 with a few hills of corn in a garden. Also soot with ashes or plaster, 

 •or a mixture of the last two might be put on each hill after it comes 

 up. A tablespoonful of either mixture would be enough for each hill. 

 This'would give vigorous growth to the corn, and would aid in keep- 

 ing the beetles away. 



But the preventive seems to be the most feasible plan of dealing 

 with this insect, and the observations of Dr. Boardman and others 

 suggest two ways of accomplishing this — rotation of crops and clean 

 cultivation. By reference to Dr. Boardman's letters, it will be seen 

 that those fields most injured last year were such as had been cul- 

 tivated in corn for several years, while corn planted on new land, 

 or land in oats the year before, suffered very little, if any. 



The first field examined was one that "had been cultivated in 

 corn for a number of years." 



In another he says : "Occasionally we see a field that is uninjured, 

 and these are on new ground or on ground that was in oats last year. 

 So far as I can learn the most serious injury is on lands that 

 have been cultivated in corn for several years in succession." 



E. S. B., referred to before, says, in tHe Prairie Farmer for September 

 7th, 1880 : "The corn seems to be literally alive now with a greenish 

 bug about the size of a lady-bug. They eat the husk on the end of 

 the ear, and some of the kernel while in a soft state. There was 

 about ten acres out of forty badly injured, all on ground that was 

 planted to corn last year." In another part of the same article he 

 says: "The pest has been known here (LaSalle Co.) several years 



