The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-04-12
TALKS ON INSECT PESTS.
V.-The Potato Beetle.
Editors Progressive Farmer

Editors Progressive Farmer:
Many persons believe that the common potato
beetle, which is so destructive to Irish potatoes,
has been introduced into our midst by the pur-
chase of Northern-grown seed potatoes, but here
again is a mistake similar to that pointed out
last week with reference to the terrapin bug, for
the potato beetle is a native of the west and
spread eastward from the Rocky Mountain region
of Colorado, reaching North Carolina about 1877,
nearly / have been able to ascertain. Let
us briefly consider the Gfe-hstory of thB insect,
for by so doing may get at some facts not
generally understood and may get rid of some er-
roneous ideas which are held by many farmers of
this State.
The adult, striped beetle appears in the spring
about the time the potato comes up, having passed
the winter underground. They begin to feed at
once on the foliage mate, and lay their eggs. The
eggs are yellow and laid in clusters of from thirty
to fifty, usually on the underside of the leaves
In few days the eggs hatch to small, oftbodied
reddish larvae with black head and legs. The
larvae are slug-like, and moist of skin, and are
very ravenous, doing much more destruction than
the adult beetles. The larvae grow quite rapidly,
shedding the skin from time to time to make
room for more growth. When fully grown they
are of a dull reddish-pink color. Then they
leave the plant and go under the ground where
they change to the pupa stage. In this stage the
insect is inactive and takes food, but is sim
ply being transformed from the larva to the
adult beetle The reader should closely study the
figure given on page so that he will be able to
recognize the insect in all it's stages. Within
week ten days the pupa transforms to the
adult beetle which then comes out of the ground,
attacks the plants provides for other generations,
etc. Now remember that the grub-like form shown
at in the figure is simply the larva of the adult
beetle shown at the one is simply different
stage of the other, and if all of stage
absolutely destroyed there could be of the
other and all that do to check one acts
also as a check to the other. 1t is all one insect,
simply in different stages of it's existence. This
is probably well understood by the majority of the
readers of these "Talks," but I have been
prised to find how many farmers there who
do not recognize these stages all belonging to
and the same insect.
Note also that there is stage in it's existence
when the insect feeds on lives in, the tuber of
the potato, hence it cannot be shipped about in
the seed potatoes unless it be that they are sim
ply gathered in bodily in the barrels in the field.
A single adult female beetle, may in the course
of her existence, lay five six hundred eggs, and
as the larvae become mature within four five
weeks there are four, five or six generations
produced in a season, the exact number being
obviously difficult to determine In the fall, after
the vines are all dead removed from the fields
and the frosts begin, the adult beetles go under
ground to pass the winter. If the same land be
nlanted in potatoes second year, the beetles may
come up in the spring at the same time that the
potatoes do thus making it appear that they
were in the seed potatoes. We have already stated
that this could not be the case.