1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 63 



a hundred dollars In the purchase of remedies, in trying to 

 check them. There was no application that could be made 

 to the asparagus that would kill them, I tried various things 

 which did not seem to have any effect at all, because their 

 method of feeding was different from that of the beetles that 

 we had been accustomed to. I supposed at one time that I 

 should have to plough up the field. I finally conceived the 

 idea of turning my fowls, of which I sometimes keep quite 

 a number, into that field, after I got through cutting the 

 asparagus. I put probably seventy or eighty hens, with as 

 many or more chickens, into the field. They gave the beetle 

 a check, and from that time forward I have followed the 

 same practice every year, and have had very little trouble 

 with the beetle. My impression is, that if asparagus growers 

 will inclose their fields and put their fowls in after cutting, 

 they will find no difficulty in dealing with them. Otherwise, 

 if they attempt to deal with them in the ordinary way, it 

 will be many years before they can be checked. I have 

 watched the habit of the beetle enough to understand that in 

 a short time after it appears a parasite also appears. In new 

 sections where it appears it goes ahead of the parasite ; and 

 if you can check it until the parasite makes its appearance, 

 you will have no difficulty. I cut everything I can during 

 the period of cutting, whether it is small or large, so that 

 the beetle will have no food. A large majority of these 

 insects lay their eggs and disappear before we get through 

 cutting, but very many of them remain to propagate their 

 kind later. I am very well satisfied — more so in regard to 

 this than almost any other point that I have had experience 

 with in farming — that by following the course I have 

 suggested the beetle can be checked. 



Mr. W. H.' Teele of Acton. The asparagus beetles 

 came to my bed about three years ago, and they increased 

 very rapidly last year. I made up my mind that something 

 must be done. I tried Paris green last year, I tried air- 

 slacked lime, I tried clear lime, and neither did any good. 

 Then I thought my application of the Paris green was 

 wrong. Of course I tried putting it on by hand, and I 

 wanted to find some way by which I could put it on and not 

 have it cost me much. So I told my boy to go and get the 



