74 PINE WEEVILS. 



should be no difficulty in doing this by methods known and practised 

 in agriculture, such as paring off and burning two inches of the top- 

 soil early in the autumn, or dressing with gas-lime, chloride of lime, 

 or ammouiacal waste, and leaving it fallow till the effect of the 

 poison has worn off. Fallow land kept clean and free from weeds 

 during the period of egg-laying in June will have comparatively few 

 wireworms, but in the absence of better food these probably feed on 

 humus, especially when young. 



If seedlings are actually attacked, hand-picking is a good remedy 

 when facilitated by the use of potatoes, carrots or sliced mangold, 

 laid on the ground as a bait and regularly visited. A dressing of 

 rape-cake or mustard-cake, popular in hop-growing, may be tried, but 

 the value of it under these circumstances remains to be proved. 

 Serious injury from wire worm is unlikely to extend beyond the first 

 year of growth. 



Pine-weevil. The worst enemy to young Conifers, either in a badly 

 situated nursery or after planting-out, is the large clumsy Pine-weevil, 

 Hylobius abietis, a blackish brown beetle of convex shape, with coarsely 

 sculptured elytra sparsely decked with patches of yellow hair. The 

 weevils lay their eggs in spring and early summer, in dead but not 

 dry Pine or Spruce-wood, choosing especially the cut stumps of recently- 

 felled trees ; also unbacked logs and the lower part of the stems of 

 dead standing trees. Under the bark the grubs gnaw irregular 

 galleries in the sapwood, changing at the ending of these to pupae. 

 Like the grubs of all weevils, they require shelter, and will not feed 

 exposed to daylight on loose brushwood, etc. They will, however, 

 flourish in the closely packed sawdust of a saw-pit, which will serve 

 excellently as a focus of infection. The duration of larval" life is 

 very variable, and depends on the climate and the season. As 

 a rule, if the eggs are laid in the spring of one year the imagos 

 make their appearance in the summer and autumn of the ^ear 

 following, live through the winter and lay their eggs in the spring; 

 or they may appear in the spring and live through the following 

 winter after egg-laying. In any case the life of the perfect beetle 

 lasts a year or thereabouts, and does not, as is the case with most 

 insects, finish at the period of egg-laying. Xo injury whatever to 

 growing plants of any value is done by the feeding of the grubs ; it 

 is entirely the work of the perfect beetles, which proceed on foot 

 to young trees, preferring Pine, but also attacking Spruce, Larch, 

 Cypress, etc., and occasionally Oak and deciduous trees when pressed 

 by hunger. 



The insects can fly, but hardly ever do so, except at pairing-time. 

 They, therefore, frequent the neighbourhood of their breeding-places, 

 and judicious selection of the site for a nursery away from such 

 localities where the insect breeds will keep the trees free until they 

 are planted out. The beetles ascend the young trees and feed on the 

 bark of the shoots and smaller branches, gnawing out circular holes 

 with shelving sides, which may reach the sapwood. In bad attacks 

 these holes are placed so closely as to coalesce, and thus patches of 

 bark are completely destroyed, the branches or the entire tree being 

 killed. Flow of sap and of resin follows the injury, the latter being 

 often very conspicuous. The trees chosen are usually from three to 

 six years old, but younger ones arc not rejected, and those up to 



