58 THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



they seein to prefer strong land and moist situations. Badly infested land may 

 sometimes be cleared of them by deep fall ploughing followed by plenty of cultiva- 

 tion and the next year by summer fallow. In this case the land should be kept 

 perfectly clear of weeds in order to starve the wireworms out and to prevent the 

 adult beetles from laying their eggs there. 



Another method which is practised largely by Japanese growers is to plant 

 balls of rice-meal between the rows to act as traps for the worms. The rice-meal is 

 first browned over a fire and is then made up with a little water into balls about 

 the size of an egg. These are planted at intervals of about 2 or 3 feet and dug up 

 at the end of a week or ten days and the worms destroyed and the balls replaced. 

 This entails much labour, but provided that it is done in early spring before the 

 crop is planted it is very efficient in clearing the land of wireworms. In experi- 

 ments conducted at Kelowna an average of twenty wireworms per ball was taken, 

 but occasionally these numbers are greatly exceeded. It would be most feasible to 

 give the infested balls to hogs or poultry and replace with fresh. 



Fig. 54. Larva of June beetle or Fig. 55. Adult June bettle (photo 

 white grub (photo by W. Downesj. by W. Downes). 



The June Bug. This is a large white grub, 2 inches in length when full-grown 

 (Fig. 55), which sometimes attacks potato-crops, doing considerable damage. It is the 

 larva of a large brown beetle (Fig. 54) marked with ten white stripes on the wing- 

 cases and is easily recognized. Normally the grubs live on grass-roots, but when 

 potatoes are planted on sod land containing these grubs they will attack the potatoes 

 or almost any other crop with which the land is planted. Whenever plants are seen 

 to be wilted and the cause is found to be the attack of the grubs they should be 

 searched for and destroyed. When whole fields are affected the only remedy is to 

 plough and turn in hogs and poultry. 



Flea-beetles. Small, hopping black beetles frequently damage potato-fields to a 

 considerable extent. They attack the foliage, eating little round holes in the leaves, 

 and when in numbers the damage they do is very great. 



Control : Spray with Bordeaux mixture, which acts as a repellent, or with 

 arsenate of lead, 4 Ib. to 40 gallons of water. 



CutiDorms. When cutworms are present in numbers they sometimes destroy the 

 crop by eating off the young leaves as fast as they appear aboVe the ground. 

 The best remedy is to scatter between the rows the bran and Paris green mash which 

 is the standard remedy for these pests. It is made as follows : Take 20 Ib. of bran 

 and stir into it while dry % Ib. of Paris green. Care should be taken that these 

 are thoroughly mixed, as upon this depends the efficiency of the bait. Dissolve 1 

 quart of molasses in from 2 to 3 gallons of water and mix this with the bran, making 

 a stiff mash. The mixture should be scattered in the evening and renewed until 

 the cutworms are destroyed. 



