882 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
December 10 
Killing: May Beetles and White Grubs. 
On page 802 an Ohio subscriber spoke 
of the injury done meadows, grain and 
potatoes by white grubs. The remedy 
he suggested was “ plant corn next year 
either on the same ground as this year, 
or on wheat stubble and the year follow¬ 
ing on stubble ground of early fallow 
ground of this year. The same rule will 
apply to potatoes, except on a tough 
Blue Grass sod which does not, so far as 
observed, afford a suitable breeding place 
for the insects.” 
The following comments on this plan 
have come to hand: “The idea is a good 
one, and farmers in regions where the 
May Beetles were so abundant, will do 
wisely to adopt the suggestion. The May 
Beetles deposit eggs in grass lands where 
the grubs develop. If the sod is turned 
over and corn is planted they are of course 
compelled to attack the latter.” 
CLABKNCE M. WEKI). 
THE MAY BEETLE. 
It is probable that very many of our com¬ 
mon scarabseid beetles, like the May 
Beetle (or “ June Bug ” as it is more gen¬ 
erally called), the beautiful Goldsmith 
Beetle, and the Spotted Pelidnota, and 
their allies, as larvae are known to farmers 
as white grubs. Indeed, there are several 
species of large, brown beetles, all of 
which are called May Beetles. They are 
so similar that only the specialist can 
distinguish between them. 1 have known 
the grub of the Goldsmith Beetle to be 
exceedingly common, and to do alarming 
mischief. The life history of our most 
common species is as follows: 
The beetles come forth from the ground 
in May or .June, eat the foliage from our 
trees—generally the oak—in which dur¬ 
ing their evening courtship they make a 
sound often as loud as that made by a 
swarm of bees. They often eat the leaves 
so as to disfigure the tree not a little. 
The owner of the latter sees the ragged 
foliage and wonders what has done the 
mischief. The eggs are laid in the earth, 
and the wee grubs commence at once to 
feed on the roots of such herbage as they 
find, preferring those of the cereals and 
grasses, and not disturbing the clover at 
all. They are so small the first summer 
that their presence is hardly felt and goes 
undiscovered. The next summer they 
are still small'and do not usually attract 
attention, though they may do much 
harm to corn, wheat and other grains. 
The third summer they are nearly full- 
grown in early spring, and do very serious 
damage. Now the corn withers up, as 
its roots are eaten off ; the wheat appears 
blighted, and the meadows turn brown 
and sere, and the grass, deprived of its 
roots, can be raked up, leaving the earth 
as bare as an ash heap. Late in the sea¬ 
son most of the species pupate and be¬ 
come tranformed into beetles, and remain 
in the earth in the mature stage until the 
next May, when the beetles come forth, 
to again lay the eggs. The female as 
in the case of all other insects, lays her 
eggs where food may be in readiness 
for the newly-hatched grubs. Thus a 
meadow, a strawberry bed, or some place 
carpeted with vegetation in May and 
June, is very certain to receive them. 
Insects are so subject to attack from 
enemies, especially other insects, that we 
can not say that because the beetles are 
very thick this season, they will surely 
cause devastation in two or three years. 
I have now been teaching here for 25 
years, and twice only have I known a 
serious attack upon our crops by this 
pest—once in 1868, and again in 1885. 
Thus we see that we can not know or 
safely predict an invasion, but we may 
expect one all the time. Again, two 
years ago the Goldsmith Beetle, (Cotalpa 
lanigera) was very destructive in several 
parts of Michigan. One field suffered 
terribly in 1889, and in 1890, in late May, 
I took a score or more beetles from a 
square yard in a field in Livingston 
County near Howell. The crows and 
skunks were both similarly engaged at 
the same time. This ground three years 
before was in corn, and so was bare dur¬ 
ing the egg-laying season. Here then the 
development must have been in two or 
four years. This further adds to the im¬ 
possibility of making any certain predic¬ 
tions. It seems to me that the best ad¬ 
vice is to turn hogs into a meadow where 
the insects are very numerous, and thus 
convert the grass and larva: into pork. 
Hogs take to the sleek fat grubs. In case 
we wish to sow wheat or plant corn, on 
grass, we should find out if the grubs 
are present, in either the first or second 
year’s stage, and if so, we can do no bet¬ 
ter than to plow early, and then cultivate 
frequently, so that the birds, etc., may 
rid the earth of the despoilers. Fall 
plowing for corn in such a case would be 
wise. [prof.] a. j. cook. 
Michigan Agricultural College. 
Progress in Corn Breeding. 
S. S. W., Saratoga Springs, N. Y.— 
The Thoroughbred Flint Corn the Rural 
sent me last spring was planted on May 
20, in a field by the side of the Dutton 
Corn and received no extra care. Both 
kinds were good. The Dutton was ripe 
about two weeks before the other. 
Both kinds had in many cases two ears 
per stalk. The Thoroughbred was cut 
up on September 30. It stood from 9 to 
11 feet high and some ears were as high 
as I could reach, and very long, several 
being from 12 to 15 inches. I shall try it 
another year to see what I can make it 
do, with a little extra care. It needs a 
long season and early planting. Many 
who looked at it said it was the biggest 
corn they had ever seen, and bore the 
longest ears. It beats everything about 
here in length of ears. 
Cob Meal Dangerous for Horses. 
John W. Akin, Scipio, N. Y.—I have 
had very little experience in feeding corn- 
and-cob meal to horses, as 1 have always 
considered it a very dangerous feed for 
these animals, but all right for cattle. 
As to how much of the meal would win¬ 
ter in good condition a horse in a good 
warm stable and doing no work, l should 
say of clear corn meal with cut hay, four 
to six quarts per day, according to the 
character of the animal, as different 
horses require different quantities of 
feed; but I think any horse should be 
worked on corn feed gradually, especially 
if at all predisposed to colic. I think cob 
meal is injurious to horses, as corn cobs 
are of no great feeding 1 value, and are 
very tough and sharp, especially the 
socket that holds the corn. 
R. N.-Y.— Farmers near the Rural 
Grounds feed “ quite some” cob meal. 
The local mill has a corn-and-cob grinder. 
The best farmer in our neighborhood 
grinds one barrel of ear corn with a 
bushel of rye for feed for his work horses. 
The mixture is ground very carefully and 
screened and reground until perfectly 
fine. It is fed moist mixed with chopped 
rye straw or hay. He says he would not 
feed it to idle horses, at least not heavily, 
and all driving or light working horses 
are fed oats. As The R. N.-Y. has stated 
before, lots of human beings in Cape Cod 
have eaten brown bread made of corn- 
and-cob meal for generation after gener¬ 
ation, and sent some mighty brainy men 
away to help develop the country. 
Progress in Tomatoes. 
J. L. C., Naples, N. Y.—I purchased 
some of the 400 Tomato seed, and was well 
pleased with the variety. My vines all 
looked up, and when they were about 
eight feet high I cut the ends to develop 
the green fruit. They were all heavily 
loaded with healthy and vigorous fruit. I 
took 12 of them to our fair, and took the 
first premium from competitors with 13 
other varieties. My 12 tomatoes weighed 
20 pounds 1 ounce. There were on the 
vines larger ones not ripe enough to be 
exhibited. I have grown tomatoes for the 
past 20 years, and like the new 400 better 
than any of the standard varieties. 
Is it Dishonest to Improve a Variety P 
W. W. Tracy, Detroit, Mich. —The re¬ 
port of the American Florists’ Associa¬ 
tion Committee on Nomenclature has 
given rise to considerable discussion, in 
the progress of which I think there has 
arisen a good deal of misunderstanding 
of the true condition of things in regard 
to the naming of varieties, particularly 
among vegetables, and in an attempt to 
clear this up, I wish to tell the whole 
truth about some facts. 
The Spheroid Squash has been in cultiva¬ 
tion a great many years and has proved a 
very popular sort, so that there is a ready 
sale for its seed. When it was first put upon 
the market most of the fruits produced 
were round, smooth, of splendid color 
and fine quality and the vines were very 
hardy, productive and early; but the 
stock was never pure and speedily be¬ 
came less so, until there was in com¬ 
merce no stock which could be depended 
upon to produce more than a very small 
percentage of fruit of the true type—and 
the variety was regarded by seedsmen as 
an inferior one, and seed sold at a lower 
price than was asked for seeds of better 
kinds. A seedsman finds a fruit of the 
Spheroid which shows to a remarkable 
degree all the old excellence of the sort. 
He carefully propagates and develops it 
until he lias a strain in which all the 
good qualities which made the variety 
popular are developed to a greater de¬ 
gree then they ever had been before, and 
which is sure to come true. The next 
season his catalogue has a full-page 
illustration of “John Smith’s New Glob¬ 
ular Squash ” and he devotes other pages 
to accounts of its merits ; but the “ Glob¬ 
ulin*,” is simply an improved strain of the 
old, old Spheroid. Is the man a rascal 
who should be exposed for having played 
such a trick ? You say, why not call it 
Improved Spheroid? Simply because to 
do so would kill it as a “seller.” Each 
of his customers would say, “ O ! I know 
that sort. I grew it three years ago; it’s 
no good.” His competitors would pick 
out the largest or the darkest colored 
fruits, according as the fancy struck 
them, from their crop of Spheroid, and 
offer seed of the “ Improved Spheroid.” 
Some experimental grounds would get a 
package of this, and issue a bulletin say¬ 
ing “ The Improved Spheroid is really no 
improvement,” and all the labor ex¬ 
pended upon the stock would be lost as 
(Continued on next Page.) 
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