JNSECTS AFFECTING GRAINS, GRASSES, FORAGE 81 



at dusk, and return to the fields just before daybreak. The 

 different species have favorite food plants, but all of our common 

 deciduous shade and forest trees are more or less eaten, poplar, 

 willow, and maple being particularly relished. On a warm evening 

 the beetles may often b2 heard feeding and their work may be 

 identified by the ragging of the foliage, as if it had been torn. 



Control. As allowing land to remain in grass for several years 

 is conducive to the increase of the grubs, a frequent rotation will 

 prevent their multiplication, the grass being followed by potatoes, 

 buckwheat, small grains, or some crop not seriously injured by 

 them. 



As the beetles remain in the pupal cells over winter and are 

 tender and not fully hardened, deep plowing and thorough har- 

 rowing in fall or early spring will kill large numbers of them 

 by breaking open the cells and exposing them to the weather 

 and by burying and crushing them. 



Swine will gorge themselves on grubs in badly infested land, 

 and if confined so that they will thoroughly root it over, will 

 very effectually rid it of them. Flocks of chickens or turkeys 

 following the plow will catch a considerable number of grubs, 

 as do the crows and blackbirds, which pay for the corn they eat 

 by the war they wage on grubs. 



The beetles may be jarred from the trees upon which they are 

 feeding in the cooler part of the night and collected, as is exten- 

 sively done in Europe. Lanterns hung over pans or tubs contain- 

 ing water with a surface -film of kerosene placed near the trees on 

 which they feed, will catch large numbers on warm nights when 

 they are flying. 



Wireworms* 



Wireworms are hard, shining, slender, cylindrical, brown 

 Iarva3 about three-quarters to 1 inch long, which bore into 

 the seed of corn, wheat and other grains, often necessitating 

 -replanting, and also feed on their roots, as well as on potatoes, 

 turnips, and many garden crops. They are the young stage of 



* Family Elateridce. 



