INJURIOUS INSECTS 



133 



remedy and is applied the same as for the potato beetle. 

 Tobacco dust is also an excellent preventative used in 

 this way. Some gardeners having quite extensive plant- 

 ings and many who are working in a small way prefer 

 to cover each hill with a box or frame covered with 

 cheesecloth. In this case, the edges of the box or 

 frame should be sunk an inch or so in the ground to keep 

 out the bugs. Frames for this purpose are readily made 

 of barrel hoops cut in halves and fastened together, or of 

 three slender sticks, forming a sort of tent. This method 

 allows the light and air to circulate 

 freely around the plants, while at the 

 same time they are perfectly protect- 

 'ed and at slight cost. 



White Grub or May Beetles 

 (Lachno sterna insca). The insect 

 known as the white grub is the larval 

 stage of the May beetle. It lives in 

 the soil, where it feeds on the roots 

 of plants. The mature insect is a 

 dark-brown beetle, often nearly black, 

 with breast covered with yellowish 

 hairs. The body is three-fourths of 

 an inch long and about a half inch 

 in diameter. They fly at night and 

 are well known insects of the spring of the year. As beetles 

 they feed on the leaves of various plants. The females 

 lay their eggs among the grass roots in a ball of earth. 

 These hatch in about a month, and the grubs begin to feed 

 on the roots near by. They require two or three years' 

 changes, and emerge in the spring of the third or fourth 

 year as the beetles described. 



Remedies. The grubs are eaten by birds, moles, and 



Fig. 49. The May beetle 

 and larva, or white grub. 



