Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1876-09-29
The Potato Beetle.

The Scientific Farmer some time AGO pub.
lished an article entitled Facts about the
Potato Beetle" which was extensively copied
by the press, and among others by the Scion-
tlhc American. Whereupon Prof. Riley
writes to that journal as follows:
Ii is not often that you are caught nap.
ping, and you are more apt to be caught
when lounging in the ield of natural history,
than in any other. In your issue of July
70, you copied an article from the Scientific
| Farmer entitled "Fucts about Potato Bee.
Ties" in which among the prominent state.
ments offered IS facts," we are told that
the potato beetle (by which of course is
meant the we'll known immigrant from Colo.
rado, and not any Of the other beetles that
affect that paut) does not fly till night and
does not eat. Both these statements are in
correct. The dorophra 10-lineata, like most
most of the species of its family, flies rapidly
IN the day time but not at night and il
feeds freely upon the various plants of the
pightshade family besides the potato, and
ssmetimes does considerable damage in the
spring long before the Larvae appears though
it is not as voracious as these and seldom
abounds on plant to the same extent.
Reasoning from his "facts," the writer Of the
article goes on to say that "any mode Of
destroying the beetle, practiced by the far.
mers here and there is only loss of time
therefore let the beetle alone"-
an erroneous deduction naturally following
following from the erroneous premise, aud
very unsound advice. 1t is in fact all i'm.
portant, from the practical view, to destroy
the first beetles and thus prevent the laying
OF eggs aud the subsequent injury /;
for while it is true that they may continue
to fly in from neighboriug fields, the fact
nevertheless remains that the more you kill
the less you have Many experienced far.
mers in this part of the country justly consider
the destruction Of the early beetles important
enough to warrant the laying of traps before
the the potatoes begin to put out of the
ground; and they do this by dipping slices
of the tuber in Paris green and laying them
about field where no domestic animal eau
get at them.
There are other errors in the article in
question, but of minor Importance. For in
stance, everyoRe who has had much expert
ence knows that the third or last brood of
beetles is fully developed and flies around
for weeks or even months before seeking
winter quarters, and that hibernate in the
perfect state, ready to awaken in the spring
and fly about again for few weeks before
procreating. The species is, also, northern
not southern, in habitat, and, while spreading
east along certain parallels. has not extended
SOUTH The talk, therefore about the insects
remaining dormant through the winter
merely because the temperature is too low
to perfect the insects" and about the proba.
bility that if they reach tropical climate,
their "transmigration transformation will
be uninterrupted misty" to say the
least. The hybernating state is induced not
alone by cold, and many insects prepare for
it and cease multiplying months before win.
ter sets in and the dOryphOra is one of them.