STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
663 
asparagus beetle, the asparagus fully naturalized.on long island 
go much Teduced for want of tops to support them that he had it plowed up. 
Capt. Monson had his beds attacked in 1860, and in 1861 the tops were badly 
eaten, but for some unknown cause the beetles all left his grounds about the 
last of August, whereby towards the close of the season a few new shoots 
sprang up and grew unmolested. The last summer the hark was completely 
eaten from all his plants and the roots showed such rapid decay that he had 
them broken up. Mr. Rebone stated that his asparagus beds had been 
entirely destroyed the past summer. 
At Flushing, Mr. King has had them two years in his beds; has tried lime, 
gait, and a strong solution of potash, to no purpose, and thinks if this beetle 
is not soon destroyed the asparagus will be. Thomas Duncan, gardener for 
E! J. Wooley, Esq., thinks he had less of the insect this year than last and 
attributes this to his having mulched the beds with sea-weed last winter. 
Edwin Hoyt has had his beds almost destroyed. A new bed planted a year 
ago was weaker now than it was the first season. 
From Newtown a gentleman stated,his beds had escaped with the exception 
of his young seedling plants which were all destroyed. 
From these data it appears that this insect was first noticed in Queens 
county at Astoria, one of the points nearest to the city of New York, where it 
began to be slightly destructive in the year 1860 and has rapidly increased 
each year since and has spread itself over nearly all of the county. It would 
seem to have advanced at the rate of some twenty miles a year, although our 
information upon this point is by no means precise. 
Over the State of New Y T ork generally, at least over all its northern 
section, we are acoustomed to see the asparagus only in gardens, where the 
roots have been planted by the hand of man. In only a solitary instance 
many years ago I met with a small stalk of this plant in my own vicinity, 
abroad in the fields, growing spontaneously from the seed. Where it is thus 
restricted exclusively to the gardens it would be no formidable task to keep 
all the shoots from the roots cut down a sufficient length of time to cause any 
insect which subsisted upon them, to perish for lack of food. But upon Long 
Island the circumstances I find are wholly different. There the asparagus 
plant is perfectly naturalized, growing readily from the seeds, which are 
everywhere scattered, chiefly by the c.ows which feed upon the berries the 
latter part of winter when their other supplies of food have become exhausted. 
Hereby slender, ipindling stalks of this plant may be seen growing in all situ¬ 
ations—by the roadsides, in the fields, and iu the woods. Thus the Asparagus 
Beetle has such an abundance of food everywhere presented to it, and the 
insect is already occupying such an extent of territory that there seems to be 
no mode by which it is now possible for us to effect its extermination. 
One of the points of most importance to complete the history of this 
insect—a point upon which I was able to find no information in any foreign 
author in my hands—was to ascertain its hybernation or the situation in which 
it secretes itself to pass the winter season. Three of the larval which had 
been sent alive to me in June, forsook the asparagus when they had completed 
their growth. I hence supposed it was most probable that they entered the 
earth to repose during their pupa state; and that the last larvm which desoend 
