92 THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



set a greater number of berries, but could not ripen them. The best 

 and earKest fruit was upon the well pruned bushes. 



A plantation set with plants propagated from cuttings of healthy 

 young roots will continue to yield good crops from twelve to fifteen 

 years, Mr. Parry says that he planted ten acres on this sandy land 

 which bore good crops of berries for thirteen years, yielding several 

 seasons six hundred and fifty bushels and once eight hundred bushels 

 of fruit. 



THE GEAPE VINE PLEA BEETLE, Haltica Chalyhea, 



BY W. SAUNDERS, LONDON. 



In No. 4, page 62, of the Horticulturist, a correspondent 

 complains of the ravages of the Grape Vine Plea Beetle. This insect 

 has been unusually abundant in many localities this season, and where 

 abundant is always very destructive to the grape vines. Its common 

 name suggests activity, and it is as active in mischief as in movement, 

 hopping during the heat of the day from leaf to leaf and from branch to 

 branch with a speed almost equal to that of its smaller namesake. 



Tlie Beetle, Fig 9, survives the mnter in the perfect 

 state, lying dormant and torpid under leaves, pieces of 

 bark, or other suitable shelter until called into activity by 

 the reviving warmth of spring. It is a pretty little beetle 

 FIG 9^ ^^ ^ polished steel-blue or green color, sometimes shading 

 into purplish, with a transverse depression across the hinder part of 

 the thorax. The under side is dark green, the antennae and feet brownish 

 black. Its length is about three-twentieths of an inch, and it lias 

 stout robust thighs, by means of which it is able to jump about very 

 briskly. It is more destructive in spring than at any other time, for 

 then before the buds have burst it is astir, with appetite the keener 

 for its long winter fast; and while the tender growth is swelling, this 

 little mischief-maker pounces on it and eats it out to its centre, thus 

 consuming in a short time two or three embryo bunches of grapes. 



The beetles aj)pear on the vines in the latter part of April and 

 continue to be destructive until late in May, after which they gradually 

 disappear. Before leaving, however, they deposit clusters of orange 

 colored eggs on the under side of the young vine-leaves wliich hatch 



