Insects Injurious to the Raspberry. ' 431 



are well kept down in the raspberry plantations, and that all manure 

 is well dug into the ground. When dealing with strawberries it is 

 advisable to give up the practice, as far as possible, of putting grass 

 and long manure under the plants, as it is sure to attract the beetles 

 to deposit their eggs. 



When raspberry canes are seen to be flagging from some root 

 trouble, the earth should be deeply forked over around the stock, and 

 any larvas turned up picked out and killed. A good drenching after 

 with liquid manure and soot- water will dislodge many of those that 

 remain. 



These grubs, which are often found in vine borders, may he 

 caught by placing a turf upside down in the soil. The white grubs 

 go to this and may be hand-picked. 



Ebfeeences. 



(1) Whitehead, Sir C. Report on Fruit Pests, p. 10. Board of Agriculture 



(1886). 



(2) Theobald, F. V. First Eeport on Economic Zoology (Brit. Mus. N.H.), 



p. 13 (1903). 



(3) Curtis, J. ' Farm Insects,' p. 108 (1883). 



THE COCK CHAFER. 



(Melolontka vulgaris. Linn.) 



On several occasions complaints have been made of the damage 

 to raspberry, strawberry and other foliage caused by the Cock Chafer 

 (Melolontka vulgaris). The adults devour all manner of leafage, but 

 especially the leaves of oak and other trees. The thick growth of 

 the raspberry forms a tempting shelter during the day for these 

 beetles, and no doubt in that way they are first attracted to the 

 canes and, being there, devour the foliage. It is not so much, how- 

 ever, in this way that this beetle is an enemy, but by means of its 

 larvjE, the so-called white grubs, which feed upon the roots of the 

 canes and strawberry plants and so weaken them and even kill the 

 plant outright, just as they do to currants and sapling trees. This 

 Cock Chafer is found in most districts, but it is especially in the 

 south, south-west and south-east that it occurs in large numbers. 

 Like its allies, the Northern Chafer, the Summer Chafer and the Garden 

 Chafer, it has definite years of appearance, with intervening periods 

 when we scarcely notice any. During the latter time they are in 

 the larval stage working in the ground. The Cock Chafer years are 

 quadrennial and can be foretold just as regularly as in the case of 

 the Seventeen Year Locust (Cicada septemdecem) in America. From 



