INSECTS IXJURIOUS TO THE SUCtAR-BEET. 265 



grown the larva transforms to a pupa inside a small 

 earthen cell, and a week or ten days later the adult beetle 

 emerges. The beetles may feed for a short time on the 

 larval food-plant, but they soon desert it for some culti- 

 vated crop. A spray of Paris green and Bordeaux mixture 

 will be found effectual in ridding the plants of these pests. 

 It should be applied liberally and the spraying should be 

 repeated, if necessary, after a heavy rain. 



Clean Culture. — But there is one very simple method 

 for securing immunity from all the pests so far mentioned, 

 which should be practiced even were no insects present. 

 There can be no doubt that the natural food-plants of all 

 these insects. Web-worms, Flea-beetles, and Plant-bugs, 

 consists of the common pigweeds, tumbleweeds, Jamestown 

 weeds, etc. Thus, a field planted in beets, which has been 

 idle and allowed to grow up in weeds, is always the most 

 subject to insect attack, and it is always well to grow 

 some crop prior to beets, and subsequently to pursue as 

 much of a rotation as possible. Fields, fences, and road- 

 sides should be kept well cleaned from these weeds, espe- 

 cially during the fall, after the crop is harvested, and with 

 such precautions the few of these insects that are always 

 present will do but slight injury. 



Blister-beetles (Meloidce). 



Among those insects attacking the young sugar-beets 

 and often doing considerable damage after they have 

 become partly grown, few are more wide-spread or do more 

 general injury than the Blister-beetles. They have been 

 especially destructive in the northern Mississippi Valley, 

 where they are usually worst after a period of unusual 

 abundance of grasshoppers. Coming suddenly in a large 



