84 INSECTS AFFECTING VEGETATION 



at that time soft and helpless, and if turned up to the surface they 

 are unable to find their way back and will perish. If still in the 

 pupal stage this will perish without being able to transform. Plow- 

 ing in mid-September will be best for this purpose, and, if desired, 

 a cover crop can be put on. This process will kill the brood ready 

 to transform, but will not kill the younger grubs yet in the ground. 



To reach these, turn hogs, or chickens, or turkeys, or all three 

 into the newly plowed field, and they will get the great majority 

 of all the grubs in the field. Indeed, in an old sod, if a few shallow 

 furrows be run through it and hogs turned in, they will from the 

 start thus given them root through the entire field, and get all but 

 a small percentage of the grubs. In localities where white grubs are 

 known to be troublesome, every sod field to be put into strawberries 

 should be treated in this way to avoid injury. 



Where white grubs are actually in a strawberry bed, there is 

 nothing to do but to dig them out wherever a plant shows injury. 

 In such a case it is well also to let the field run moderately to weeds 

 to distribute the feeding, while not enough to attract beetles to lay 

 eggs. (Bui. 225, N. J. Agr. Exp. Sta.) 



Ground-Beetles Eating Strawberries. The beetles evidently 

 attack the fruits primarily to get the seeds, and considerable of the 

 pulp adheres to the seeds when they are removed; but sometimes 

 the beetles eat much of the pulp also. Ripening berries which the}' 

 have fed upon often soon begin to rot, and they ruin for any purpose 

 every berry they attack. The favorite haunts of the beetles are under 

 stones and rubbish on the ground, hence the usual mulch on a 

 strawberry bed forms an ideal lurking place for them. 



In England, Miss Ormerod has shown that even when feeding 

 on strawberries, the beetles do not lose their carnivorous appetites, 

 and may be attracted by meat. Some English strawberry growers 

 report that they almost entirely destroyed the beetle pest by sinking 

 into the ground to the level of the surface a lot of cheap basins or 

 dishes and then keeping these traps baited with pieces of meat 

 (lights) and sugar water; in dry weather they often caught half a 

 basinful in one night! Another grower caught enormous numbers 

 of the beetles by pouring about half an inch of tar in the bottom of 

 the basin traps. Doubtless any kinds of spare waste meat or fish 

 would prove equally attractive to the beetles, and some cover such 

 meat with thick sacking and then collect by hand those which gather 

 around and under this bait. These trapping methods involve con- 

 siderable trouble and expense but one had better spend $25 in thus 

 protecting a $250 crop of strawberries which the beetles are capable 

 of ruining in a few days. (Bui. 190, Cornell Agr. Exp. Sta.) 



THE BLACKBERRY AND THE RASPBERRY INSECTS. 



The Red-necked Cane Borer. The parent of this borer is a 

 small, slender beetle, not exceeding one-third of an inch in length, 

 somewhat tapering toward the end of the body, bronze brown in 

 general color, but with a coppery red or brassy neck or thorax, which 

 makes it easily recognized and gives the name to the species. It is 

 found during bright, sunshiny days in late May, all of June and 



