210 MANUAL OF AMERICAN GRAPE-GROWING 



the buds next spring. When the adults migrate from wild 

 vines, or the larvae were not destroyed in the vineyard, collect- 

 ing the adults is the only practical method. The destruction 

 of wild vines near a vineyard helps to give immunity from this 

 pest. 



The rose-chafer. 



The rose-chafer (Macrodactylus subspinosus) , a long-legged 

 beetle of a yellowish-brown color, about a third of an inch in 

 length, often appears in vineyards in vast swarms toward the 

 middle of June in northern states and about two weeks earlier 

 in southern states east of the Rocky Mountains. Often they 

 overrun gardens, orchards, vineyards and nurseries, and usually, 

 after having done a vast amount of damage in the month of 

 their devastating presence, the beetles disappear as suddenly 

 as they came. Vineyards on or near sandy soils are most 

 often infested, the larvse of the beetle seeming to live in consid- 

 erable numbers only in these light soils. The chief damage 

 to the grape is done to the blossom ; in fact the insects, after 

 feeding on the blossoms during the blossoming period, usually 

 migrate to blossoms of any one of several shrubs. The larvse 

 feed on the roots of grasses, having particular liking for the 

 roots of foxtail, timothy and blue-grass. 



Some knowledge of the life history of these beetles is essen- 

 tial to effective control. The beetles emerge as adults in June 

 and after feeding a short time begin to mate, although egg- 

 laying does not take place until the insects have been out for 

 a fortnight or more. The females burrow into the soil and 

 deposit their eggs, seldom more than twenty-five in number, 

 which begin to hatch in about ten days. The young larvse 

 feed during the remainder of the summer on roots of grasses. 

 They are seldom found deeper than six inches while feeding, 

 but as cold weather approaches they burrow deeper to avoid 

 sudden changes of temperature. The following spring they 



