508 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
STRIPED PLEA-BEETLE. DUSTING YFITII ASHES. WITH SULPHUR. 
those beetles, recovered on being woll dusted with lime. And ho 
cites Mr. Birk, who says that he used slacked lime with perfect 
success, and although profusely, it did not at all injure the plants. 
Dusting the infested plants with lime, plaster, ashes, soot, Scotch 
suulf, sulphur, &c., or with two or three of these substances mixed 
together, are measures which have been extensively resorted to in 
this country, and the efficacy of which are everywhere known by 
experience. The beetles pretty generally forsake the plants which 
arc thus dusted. I am inclined to think the efficacy of these 
dry powders is partly due to the embarassment they give the 
beetles, by preventing them from leaping with their customary 
agility—their feet being unable to get a firm support for making 
the leap, when standing among this loose dry powder. I extract 
from my memoranda one of the several observations I have made, 
on the efl'ects of dusting the plauts with these substances: “June 
15, 18G3. My young cabbage plants, now some six inches high, 
are much infested with the Striped flea-beetles. They gather upon 
the upper sides of the leaves, in the bright sun-shine, and towards 
the base of the leaf they eat into the soft pulp, or parenchyma, 
thus forming a large, rough, raw spot, to which the minute gar¬ 
den fleas ( Poduridce ) delight to resort. On other leaves they cat 
similar rough streaks along the border. Two days ago I sprinkled 
with my hand, dry unleached ashes on six rows of the cabbage 
plants, and sulphur on four rows. The effect has boon most happy. 
I to-day find no flea-beetles or garden fleas upon any of the plants 
which wero dusted with ashes, and only a few of the leaves dusted 
with sulphur have any upon them, whilst the rows of plants which 
were not sprinkled are much infested. And the wounds made by 
the beetles are healed. I now sprinkle air-slaked lime upon four 
of the remaining rows. I notice that the beetles do not throw 
themselves off from the leaves so quickly when the lime powder 
strikes them, as they did when the ashes began to fall upon them, 
and I think the ashes are to be preferred to any other substance 
for protecting plants from these flea-beetles.” 
But although these substances, ashes especially, usually suffice 
for driving these flea-beetles from the plants, my observations 
assure me of the fact, that a season occasionally arrives when they 
fail of having any perceptible effect. The insects at times become 
more bold and feaidess than is their common habit. Numbers o 
t>£? em will cling to the leaf, regardless of the dust falling upo n 
