328 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



long stick stuck through them to mark their whereabouts. This 

 is done early some time before planting. The grubs collect on 

 these to feed, when they are gathered and destroyed. Gas-lime 

 and salt are also highly recommended by experienced gardeners 

 of Europe. These are placed with the seed in planting. 



If the wire-worms seem very abundant and harmful, I would 

 advise the sowing of buckwheat the second year after plowing 

 under sod. The first year they seem to prefer the decaying 

 grass roots, and buckwheat seems distasteful or poisonous to 

 them. The same is but little less true of beans and peas. 



Pea "Weevil. Bruchus pisi, Linn. Family, Bruchidce. Or- 

 der, Coleoptera. This little insect, though doing little damage 

 to garden peas, for in green peas it is not only too small to es- 

 sentially change the flavor, but even to attract the eye, but in 

 field crops, where peas are raised to feed after they are fully 

 matured, there is very serious injury, for this little weevil, so 

 generally distributed, and so persistent in its yearly attacks, 

 consumes, while yet a larva, all the nutritious material of the 

 pea; leaving only the germ and a mere shell outside. Hence, 

 affected peas will sometimes (though only rarely) grow, but, of 

 course, with bated vigor, as the needed starch pabulum is want- 

 ing in those early days, the precarious time with all life ; but to 

 feed, they are almost entirely useless. 



NATURAL HISTORY. The little brown weevil, with the wing- 

 covers so short that some light markings, somewhat resembling 



the letter T, are seen just back of them 

 (Fig. 10. Bruchus pisi. Linn.), comes 

 _^__^_^ through the winter in the peas, having 



>^ JIBPilV a ^^ e P enm S (Fig- 10? b)> a door of 

 /^MHM^i ^ exit, already prepared, where they not 

 infrequently remain even to the day of 

 sowing. I have seen them thick as 



Fio. 10. a. Imago magnified. 6, 



Pea. c, Natural size. bees above the ground where peas were 



being sowed. Just as soon as the pods are formed and the 

 seeds set within them, the weevil, big with eggs, if not with 

 mischievous intent, pierces the pod opposite each pea, and inserts 

 an egg within each puncture, so that every pea may contain 



