A BOTHERSOME PAIR OF JUNE GUESTS 
Protecting Your Irises from Borers and Your Garden Crops from Grubs by Cultivation and Cleanly Care 
Editors’ Note: Heartily will all gardeners welcome Miss Patch’s sane and encouraging statement (see article below) that “in general any management 
which strengthens the plant will lessen losses from insect injury. A rich soil, well cultivated, may grow crops in spite of an infestation which would be fatal on 
poorly managed soil.” 
In these troublesome days of Quarantine 37 with all the emphasis placed on plant disease and none on plant health it is cheering to have such a note of 
constructive right thinking injected into the negative, repressive pessimism which seems to characterize much of to-day’s legislation in regard to plants. 
Of course, plants have their enemies and of course they often carry germs. So do we all of us! Yet no one suggests that just because the human body is 
known to give friendly lodging to innumerable germs that therefore all the people in the world be killed off! We may deplore this hospitable tendency in 
plants and people and the fact that all forms of life are thus interdependent, but no amount of wailing will lead us anywhere—we can, however, line ourselves up 
with the positive, active agencies that make for life and health. With plants, as with people, the best way to fight disease and render it neglible is by cleanly living 
conditions, care, and correct feeding—the old, old tale of “the sound body!” 
I. GETTING THE BETTER OE THE IRIS BORER 
H ISCOLORED and dying leaves on the Iris plants are 
often the first indication that borers (Macronoctua 
onusta) are at work. Further investigation below 
the surface of the soil will reveal the worms or cater¬ 
pillars feeding upon the roots. 
These worms or caterpillars, upon hatching from the eggs in 
the spring, enter the stems and gradually work downward into 
the roots, eating and growing as they go. The full grown cater¬ 
pillars or root borers are 
about an inch and one 
half to two inches in 
length. The head of the 
caterpillar is brown and 
the remainder of the 
body is smooth and of a 
light pink or flesh color 
(borers on Iris root shown 
at left). 
When full-grown they 
stop feeding and are 
ready for that interesting 
and startling change com- 
THE LIFE CYCLE OF 
THE IRIS BORER 
Caterpillars or root borers 
foster their own growth by 
feeding on the roots of the 
Iris (above); when full- 
grown they stop feeding and 
enter upon the pupa stage 
(right) emerging eventually 
as dark brown moths 
mon to all moths—from caterpillar to pupal or quiescent stage. 
The caterpillar enters the earth and constructs a cell, where 
the complete transformation is consummated; the colors of 
the skin change, fade, and disappear, and this skin is finally 
discarded. In this pupal condition it can neither eat, fly, 
nor run, and is a shiny, cylindrical object, chestnut brown 
in color, and blunt or rounded at one end, the other end 
terminating in a point. A pupa is shown in the illustration 
below. 
After sufficient time has elapsed, there is again a change, and 
from these pupae emerge the male and female moths—the 
parents of the I ris borers, which are ordinary-looking dark brown 
moths (pictured below) with a brown body about three fourths of 
an inch long and a wing expanse of about one and three quarters 
inches. The fore wings are considerably darker than the hind 
ones, are mottled with varying shades, and streaked with wavy, 
indefinite lines of darker purplish brown. 'These moths fly and 
mate during the early fall, at which time the female places her 
eggs along the edge of the leaves and stems of the Iris. 
Of the several remedies recommended the most practical 
seems to be burning the dead leaves and other material on the 
Iris beds during the winter or spring, to destroy the eggs. 
Infested stems should be cut out and burned, thus destroying 
the caterpillars, and this might be followed by digging up the 
infested roots where the injury is very noticeable—possibly 
without spoiling the beds. Spraying with arsenate of lead 
about the time the eggs hatch might be effective, and experi¬ 
ments along these lines should be developed. 
A. B. Champlain, Asst. Entomologist 
Pennsylvania Dept of Agriculture 
II. THE JUNE BEETLE NOT SO JOLLY AS HE SEEMS 
is something whimsical in our attitude toward 
^ ie k'8 blundering beetles that come thudding against 
fwlljsi our w ’ n d° ws evening or into them if they are open 
and unscreened But however sociably inclined we 
may feel toward the jolly 
June-bugwho “can buzz 
and bump his head 
against the wall/’ it will 
not do for us to forget 
that he is only a grown-up 
white grub after all; and 
what gardener has not 
turned up the white grub 
in his digging and tossed 
it savagely to the pet 
crow or the biddies? 
Certainly the white 
grub is no laughing mat¬ 
ter with its destructive 
habit of spending three 
years feeding upon the roots of plants before attaining its full 
size. Then when its underground ravages are over it is neces¬ 
sary for it to experience a period of rest in pupal stage while 
the transformation to the adult beetle takes place. It is not 
until the next spring that 
the “shard borne beetle”' 
breaks from his earthen 
cell to blunder about, de¬ 
lighting children, scaring, 
girls who fear tangled 
hair, and celebrating 
their period of egg-laying 
by many such incidental 
excursions. 
Although grass roots 
are the native food of 
white grubs, a great 
variety of garden plants 
are liable to attack— 
Sweet Corn, Potatoes, 
THE STORY OF A JUNE BEETLE 
The white grub (center) sustains himself for three years on the roots of Strawberries, 
Sweet Corn, Potatoes, Beets, and other garden delectables, also lawns, before reach¬ 
ing the pupal state and his final transformation into the "jolly June bug” (right). 
Among his natural enemies is the strange parasitical insect shown above (left) 
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