43 
In our breeding cages we learned concerning L. inverse that 
the adults would feed upon the blades of blue grass, at least 
when nothing else was available, and that, supplied with leaves 
from a variety of trees, they ate freely of oak, elm, and chest¬ 
nut, and slightly of hazel, but neglected ash. L. hirticuhi also 
ate blue grass "in our breeding cages, under similar circum¬ 
stances, and devoured chestnut very freely, but at first did not 
touch ash or oak. Later it ate elm, oak, and chestnut greedily, 
hazel and hickory sparingly, and birch not at all. Oak and 
chestnut leaves seem on the whole to be the favorite food of 
this species. 
EXPERIMENTS WITH REMEDIES. 
The vast numbers of these grubs frequently turned out by 
the plow in spring, especially when preparing the soil for corn, 
and the great damage to the subsequent crop, which could be 
easily prevented by simply picking the larvae up by hand, sug¬ 
gest the possibility of the profitable use of the help of boys for 
clearing badty infested ground. A field of young corn is espe¬ 
cially liable to injury by the grubs on account of the small 
amount of vegetation which it presents to them, and the col¬ 
lection of a thousand or two per acre might easily make the 
difference between insignificant damage and a serious loss. 
There is no question of the very profitable use of this method 
of destruction in the Old World, where, however, agricultural 
conditions are very different from ours. 
To test the possibility of destroying the grubs by burying 
poisoned food in the earth—a method which might be practi¬ 
cally valuable in horticulture—an assistant buried potatoes 
dipped in Paris green, and placed six white grubs in the earth 
with them June 27, 1886—too late in the season for the best 
results. Four days later one of the potatoes had evidently 
been slightly eaten, and three of the grubs were dead. In a 
similar experiment with white arsenic, where one potato had 
been slightly gnawed, two of the grubs were killed. 
Several trials were made with fluids applied to the earth, in 
the hope of killing the grubs by contact. A solution of whale 
oil soap, for example, about half a pound to two gallons of 
water, was used July 13 to saturate sod undermined by grubs, 
but without the slightest effect in two experiments. A similar 
treatment with a strong decoction of tobacco stems had not 
killed the grubs after twenty-four hours, but had seemingly 
driven them deeper into the earth. Gasoline acted promptly, 
of course, but killed the vegetation likewise. Solutions of salt— 
one pound to three and a half gallons of water—applied three 
times in succession the 14th July were also quite without 
effect. 
Applications of kerosene, however, in the well-known form of 
a soap emulsion, were found fairly effective for white grubs in 
lawns. On the 12th June, 1886, an assistant saturated in- 
