Success with Small Fruits. 



the beetle phase, it is sure to appear at the most inopportune times and 

 unsuitable places, creating the inevitable commotion which the blunderer 

 and tactless are born to make. As it whisks aimlessly around, it may hit 

 the clergyman's nose in the most pathetic sentence of his sermon, or drop 

 into the soprano's mouth at the supreme climax of her trill. Satan him- 

 self could scarcely produce a more complete absence of devotion than is 

 often caused by these brainless creatures. 



Because quiet by day, they are not out of mischief, as defoliated trees 



often prove. As 

 midsummer ap- 

 proaches, they die 

 off ; but never 

 until each female 

 beetle has put 

 into the ground 

 about two hun- 

 dred eggs, which 

 never fail to hatch. 

 The first year, the 

 grubs are little, 

 and, while they 

 do all the harm 

 they can, the 

 small roots they 

 destroy are not 

 seriously missed 

 by the plants. 

 The second year, 

 their ability keeps 

 pace with their 

 disposition, and 

 they occasionally 

 destroy straw- 

 berries by the acre. More often, certain patches of a field or garden are 

 infested, and sometimes will be kept bare of plants in spite of all one can 

 do. Too often, the presence of the grub is learned only after the mischief 

 is complete. You may have petted a strawberry plant for a year, and 

 after it has developed into noble proportions, and awakened the best 

 expectations from its load of immature fruit, you will, perhaps, find it 

 wilting some morning. You then learn, for the first time, that this 



The White Grub. ( ' Lachnosterna Fusca.) 



