60 VORACITY OF THE GRUBS. 



sudden appearance of small round holes ranged in irregu- 

 lar rows : in each of these holes one of the tiny gluttons 

 may he seen clasping the eaten part of the leaf hetween his 

 legs and elevating the end of his body in the air. I give 

 you a sketch of the leaf, showing this first stage of the evil, 

 because at this period the progress of the plague may be 

 arrested, and I consider it important to make horticulturists 

 acquainted with its exact appearance : the grubs are too 

 \ small to be shown, you will therefore understand that the 

 \ appearance of the leaf is all that I aim at in the figure. At 

 Jjthis nick of time, by a little care and industry, you may 

 fifeave your gooseberries. Now that leaf has sixty-seven 

 grubs feeding on it : each grub will eat three leaves before 

 i it is full fed : argal, if you destroy that one leaf and all its 

 \ inhabitants, you save two hundred and one leaves. If you 

 have no time to look for these leaves yourself, get some 

 children to do it ; they will soon take an interest in the 

 occupation, particularly if backed by a few coppers : surely 

 you would not object to give a child a halfpenny a score 

 for such leaves, and that price would be quite sufficient to 

 clear the vision and sharpen the intellects of many a hun- 

 gry boy. I would also recommend young ladies to look 

 after such leaves, and pick them into a hand-basket, the 

 contents of which may be emptied into a bucket of water 

 standing near, or disposed of in a variety of ways. If you 

 neglect the trees at this critical time, each infested leaf will 

 be quickly stripped of all its green, the ribs alone remain- 

 ing : the grubs then descend its foot-stalk, and wandering 

 in different directions each finds a leaf for himself, and the 

 work of devastation begins in earnest. 



The grub is known to every gardener, indeed so well 

 known, that you may perhaps consider it a waste of time 



