2OO Our Farming. 



twenty-four acres clean two years, eighteen two years, and about 

 a dozen, other years. The great point has been to pick the 

 first beetles as fast as they come, as soon as you can see here and 

 there a plant up, and keep right at it persistently for a few weeks. 

 A quart glass fruit can is the best thing to pick in, holding in the 

 left hand and walking along, picking from two rows at once. 

 It is not best to get down and poke around a plant and try to get 

 every beetle, which you cannot do ; but go along, picking what 

 you can see readily. One will get more in a day in this way. 

 We used to use a six-gallon tin pail with a tight cover, to empty 

 cans into, and then at night we poured boiling water on them and 

 by the next morning they were ready to bury in the manure. 

 I say we used to use this pail. They are not nearly so plenty the 

 last two or three years, and the pail is hardly needed. I do not 

 think we have one-tenth as many beetles now as ten years ago, 

 whether because we have fought them so persistently, or because 

 they are "running out," or their enemies are increasing, I hardly 

 know. Probably it is a little of all three. After the larvae begin 

 to hatch, we use a common eight-quart milk pan, attached to a 

 long handle, so we can stand up straight, and hold the pan under 

 the hill with the left hand easily, and with a long paddle about 

 four inches wide, held in the right gently (for fear of injury to 

 vines, not to bugs), gather them in from a row on each side, as we 

 walk along. These pans were emptied in the big pail also. As 

 I write I can see a man passing back and forth with this pan, and 

 hear the rap of the paddle on the pan occasionally to keep them 

 from crawling out. We get some old beetles, of course, in with 

 the larvae. This plan has actually cost me less money than using 

 poison, and it has many other advantages as above mentioned. 

 It is not practical always on a garden patch ; the larger the field, 

 the more practical. Beetles fly only in warm days. We always 

 plant on new land. They must fly on, as they winter near where 

 they were last year. They never fly far after they come to the 

 edge of a field of potatoes. Hence we gather them around the 

 outside of the field as they come, on days when they fly, and 

 prevent their getting all over, for a time at least. If raising 100 

 acres, I should never think of using poison. There is no question 

 in my mind that a little Paris green even is injurious, although not 

 killing the tops at all. Prof. Lazenby and other skilled botanists 

 have agreed with me on this. I believe I can save the plants 

 enough in this way alone to pay for hand picking. I am no 

 crank on this subject, but have simply made it a matter of business. 

 I might say, quite a few potatoes are grown about here, and all 

 fight bugs as I do, so far as I know. I neglected to say above 

 that thorough work at first for three or four weeks nearly ends 

 the job for the season. The getting of the beetles before they 

 lay many eggs, is the point. Later you may get them, and have 

 a full crop of larvae, too. 



