106 AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 



as well as grass by eating the roots, sometimes destroying them 

 so completely in sod-land that the grass may be rolled from the 

 surface like a sheared fleece. It especially prevails among 

 corn or potatoes planted in newly-plowed sod-land. Plowing 

 in the fall has been thought to expose the grub to destruction 

 by the frost, the birds, &c. On spring-plowed sod lime sown 

 at the rate of forty bushels per acre, or salt at the rate of five 

 or six bushels, before the last harrowing, will be found of ad- 

 vantage. The fall plowing is probably to be preferred, and, if 

 convenient, the lime also may be applied after the spring plow- 

 ing. Crows, jays, and some other birds seek the grubs eager- 

 ly, and destroy large numbers of them every season. 



Their changes are completed in the ground, and in due time 

 the MAY-BUG makes its appearance. This is the rather large, 

 short, light brown beetle, with rough, or ridged and slightly- 

 punctured wings, and feet that feel like claws, which abounds 

 in cherry-trees in the spring evenings, flying with a humming 

 sound, and often striking with some force against an object in 

 its track, when in general it quietly settles and folds its large 

 gauze inner wings entirely under the hard cases which cover 

 and shield them. In the day it lies quietly among the leaves, 

 or returns to its hiding-place in the sod. Its eggs are de- 

 posited in the earth, and in two weeks the small grubs are 

 hatched. 



The European variety of May-bug, which ours closely resem- 

 bles, becomes a scourge at times, stripping whole forests of their 

 foliage ; and it is generally said that ours eats the leaves of 

 cherry and other trees. Fitch reports a single instance of its 

 serious depredations, but I have never known it to do noticea- 

 ble injury to any thing, and mention it among injurious insects 

 only on account of its connection with my subject as parent of 

 the corn-grub. As the May-bugs are, in general, much more 

 easily caught than the grub, it is desirable to destroy them as 

 far as possible. They may be caught in numbers at midday, 

 and more freely toward evening, by being shaken from the trees 

 into a sheet, and destroyed by crushing, or scalding, or fire. 



The grub of the tumble-bug or dung beetle, Melolontha co- 

 pris, is supposed to have similar bad habits with the former, 



