1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 57 



what is wanted is to know what is the remedy, for we all 

 know he is very destructive. But that question is one which 

 I hardly feel able to answer. It is said that Paris green 

 will kill him, but for some reason or other it will not kill him 

 on my soil. I think he grows just as well when the plants 

 are covered with Paris green as he does when they are not. 

 London purple is undoubtedly preferable to Paris green, as 

 it sticks to the plants better ; but I have had greater success 

 in killing him with pulverized lime than with anything else. 

 I use air-slacked lime, but I believe it is generally understood 

 that unslacked lime is the best. I have my doubts, how- 

 ever, about that. The slug of the beetle is a sticky thing, 

 and if any dry substance can be made to stick to him (and 

 almost anything will that touches him), it is pretty sure 

 death. I think he is killed by putting a little of this fine 

 lime on him, just the same as the currant worm is killed. 

 The currant worm when small can be killed with ashes or 

 with lime in the same way, by its sticking on its body. I 

 think that is the reason why lime is better than Paris green ; 

 it sticks on the outside of the bug, and kills him. There is 

 more difficulty in taking care of a bed that is not cut than 

 there is of one that is cut. If you have young asparagus on 

 your place, the beetles will get on in large numbers. They 

 will leave an old bed entirely, and go to the new bed. Then, 

 if you cut the asparagus on the new bed, the beetle goes 

 back to the old bed ; he wants to be on the young growing 

 plants. One year I did a thing that I think was the best I 

 ever did. I had a large asparagus bed, of perhaps fifty 

 thousand plants ; and just after I cut my asparagus I mowed 

 it down close to the ground and burned it off, and the 

 beetles with it. That thinned them out so much that they 

 did not trouble me again for a number of years. But I 

 have been induced to plant new beds within a year or two, 

 and I have suffered more from the beetle this last year than 

 I have for several years before. When you cut your bed up 

 to the 20tli of June you get clear of the bugs, so that there 

 will be very few, if any, carried over; but when they are 

 thick in the spring, after you have cut your crop, they are 

 carried over through the winter, and the next year you will 

 find that they will injure your crop very much by eating the 



