18 



FARMERS BULLETIN 835. 



able, as indicated below. Pasture hogs in infested fields wherever 

 practicable. 



When beetles or pupae are in the ground in summer. Plow thor- 

 oughly, so as to break clods, any time after July 15, but the sooner 

 after that date the better. Pasture hogs in infested fields. 1 



BILLBUGS. 2 



The billbugs, snout-beetles, or "elephant bugs" (see fig. 10 and 

 illustration on title page), as they are variously termed, are hard- 

 shelled beetles which live normally in sedges, rushes, or the large wild 



grasses found growing in moist, low 

 ground. Corn planted in river and 

 creek bottoms or other low places, espe- 

 cially in the southern portions of the 

 country, is liable to injury by billbugs. 

 The grubs, or young, of these beetles live 

 inside the stems or roots of plants, and 

 their injuries to corn usually are caused 

 by their eating out the central portion 

 of the stalk, thereby stunting and seri- 

 ously injuring the corn plants. (See fig. 

 11.) The adult beetles also injure the 

 corn, for they puncture the growing 

 point or " bud " of the plant. 



REMEDIES FOR BILLBUGS. 



FIG. 10. The maize biiibug (Sphe- Some kinds of billbugs are eliminated 

 nophorus maidis) -. Adult, four easily by rotation of crops. Corn should 



times natural size. i " ai -i 



not be followed by corn in the Atlantic 



Coastal Plain region of the South, but may be alternated with cotton, 

 on which the billbugs can not live. Land infested with these insects 

 should always l>e plowed in the late summer or early fall, for thus 

 the winter quarters of the bugs are broken up. The immediate de- 

 struction of all sedges, rushes, chufa, or large swamp-inhabiting 

 grasses in land intended to be planted to corn is especially necessary, 

 as these plants are the natural food of the billbugs, and the insects 

 can not be eliminated unless this is done. 



CORN ROOT-APHIS. 3 



The corn root-aphis (fig. 12) attacks the roots of corn throughout 

 the States east of the Rocky Mountains, especially in those States 



1 Further information regarding these pests is contained in Farmers' Bulletin 543, 

 which may be obtained free of charge upon application to the Secretary of Agriculture, 

 Washington, D. C. 



2 HphenopJiorus spp. The species illustrated on the title-page is Sphenophorus aequalis 

 Gyll. 



3 Aphis maidi-radicis Forbes. 



