526 SUPPLEMENT 



trefoil, and the different kinds of grasses are sown, must 

 naturally serve these insects for a retreat. Moreover, this 

 feeble resource could not be adopted at any other time than 

 in spring, and the commencement of autumn ; for about the 

 end of this season these larvas inter themselves deeply in the 

 ground, for the purpose of sheltering themselves against the 

 cold, and remain during the winter, at such a depth, that it 

 would be quite impossible for the plough to get at them. 



Third Method. — M. Gouffier having observed that the 

 trees planted in espaliers, near which grew strawberry bushes, 

 lettuces, &c., were less subject to these white ivorms, he 

 judged that they would give the preference to these last men- 

 tioned plants, and which he found, in fact, to be almost all 

 of them eat up. He then adopted the method of furnishing 

 his espaliers with salad, and of planting thick tufts of straw- 

 berries, which he removed with the tuft on which they grew, 

 to the foot of orchard trees. He was careful to visit them 

 two or three times each day, and as soon as he observed a 

 lettuce begin to wither, he dug at its foot with a little trowel, 

 and always found one or more larvae of cock-chafers gnawing 

 at the root of it. As to the strawberries, he did not so soon 

 perceive the sojourn of the larvae in them ; but as their roots 

 were numerous, they established for themselves there a sort 

 of domicile, which made them forget the neighbouring trees. 



This method, though very good for preserving the trees 

 from these mischievous larvae, can avail nothing against the 

 ravages which they commit in the open country. 



Fourth Method. — M. Gouffier, and many other agricul- 

 turists, have proposed to spread soot around the feet of the 

 young trees, and frequently to stir up the earth there, and 

 to cast in a field, peat, pit-coal, turf ashes, or even lime, to 

 drive away or destroy these larvae. According to the expe- 

 riments tried by these agriculturists on a small scale, it ap- 

 peared that these substances did in fact drive away tlie larvae 



