Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1910-08-23

be rolled up like carpet. BY preference Iney
devastate grass, but If the supply is scant' tney
are willing to ruin small grain, corn strawberry
plantations woodlands, and, indeed, many other
situations They are especially difficult to COM
bat because the life history is hard to follow
from the first to the last stage. Only single
specimen has been bred from the egg TO the
beetle and Its life cycle occupied three years.
So far the best remedy has been found to
be In cropping, especially In planting the IN
tested ground to clover. Wel-known enemies
OF the white grub also are the festive porker,
which will dig foot for nice Iat one ana
crows and crow blackbirds.
Occasionally a farmer notices that field
which has been brown from a grub ravage be-
comes green and alive. He Is inclined to think
1t clear case of the Lord remembering the
righteous as a matter of fact another insect
has appeared and is working out another set
of instincts. This is the Tiphia, a member Of
the solitary wasp family. 1t stings the grub
into submission and then CLUES to its thick hide
an egg which in few days matches into
veritable vampire 1t sucks from its host Its
life Juices, leaving the shell to crumble back
to earth
Trees, both those in natural forests and
those which have been planted, noble and
helpless products of nature" to quote Dr.
Forbes, often dragged to slow and I'M
slightly death through insect infestation. Have
you never late In May or in June noticed upon
shade trees little wads Of cotton? Each wad,
you will see, If you look, projects from a brown
cap, which is the female maple scale. 1t is a
native insect parasite of the soft maple 1t will
infest besides the maple, the linden, box elder,
elm and honey locust. These cotton wads are
the soft bed In which the careful female lays
her eggs and each female can be relied upon
to deposit something like 5000 eggs in her own
particular little wad. DR.. Forbes found after
considerable experiment that kerosene emul
sion was effective in disposing of these pests
A 20 per cent. emulsion could be used in winter
If the roots of the trees were protected. and
10 per cent in summer 1t is made by dissolv-
ing one pound of common soap in one gallon
of water by boiling. This is removed from the
fire and two gallons of kerosene poured in
With a spray pump the mixture is then forced
back into itself for about five minutes, when 1t
will look like a thick cream, and no longer sepa-
rates on standing. Seventeen gallons of water
added to the three gallons thus prepared will
give a 10 per cent. solution. The cost will
be 43 cents a gallon and three or four gallons
will save a large tree from destruction.
Doubtless you have noticed upUn the apples
you brought home In a paper bag and those
that fell from your own cherished tree a cres-
rent mark. This means that a busy little curculio
has had its beak In your apple before you and
has probably laid an egg at the sign of the
crescent curculios A spray compound of 12h
ounces of acetate of lead and four ounces Of
arsenate of soda to fifty gallons of water, IL
used three or four times, will catch practically
all these orchard destroyers
Among the insects injurious to health the
common housefy takes first rank DR.. Forbes
has found that rs per cent, of the common
houselies breed in horse manure. AS the rene
dies that will kill the housefy maggots are too
dangerous to be used in stables, except boiling
water, which IS hardly practicable, the only
protection seems to be in screening stables
against flies we do our houses and In careful
city sanitation.