A garden well tended puts the farm far ahead of the city home for luxuries of the table and cuts the cost of living in two. Fresh vegetables and cream are expensive articles in the city, inaccessible to any but the well-to-do, but it does not take a very thrifty farmer to have them, providing he has a thrifty wife. But to be a real helpmeet she must have an overall skirt and a pair of rubber boots. Then the dewy mornings will be as much of a pleasure to her as to her husband, and she can do her garden work in the cool of the day.
A garden is especially valuable to a farm, because the farm is usually somewhat isolated and must depend more or less upon its own resources for freshness and variety of food. A good garden on the farm will almost abolish the tin can, and strike off a large part of the grocer's bill, to say nothing of making the farmer live like a king.
The Strawberry Weevil.
As strawberries are about to blossom, it would be well to keep a look-out for a shortage in the number of blossoms, for this is the first indication of the work of the strawberry weevil. Because of the diminutive size of the insect, few are acquainted with it, so that the shortage of blossoms or failure of the crop is often attributed to frost, hail, climatic conditions or some other agency. Upon close examination, the buds will be found to be severed from the stem, some lying beneath on the ground, others being still attached by a few shreds in a drooping manner. Further examination around the buds may reveal a small snout beetle, which is the cause of the injury, it being about one-tenth inch long and marked with two dark spots on each wing cover. The females oviposit in the buds, and then cut them off when oviposition is completed, in order to protect the larva within, which later develops to the adult beetle.
Showing beetle of strawberry weevil and the damage it inflicts.
The strawberry weevil has been especially injurious around the vicinity of Hopkins the past summer. It was not uncommon to find fields with from forty to ninety per cent. of the buds cut, and as the earliest and most mature buds, which would be the first to ripen, are among those cut, the losses inflicted may be quite serious. The weevil not only injures the cultivated strawberry, but is found to attack the buds of the red raspberry, dewberry and wild strawberry. It is a singular fact that only the staminate varieties are injured, especially those which furnish considerable pollen, since this constitutes the chief food supply of both larvae and adults.
Life History.—The weevil appears as soon as the buds begin to form and soon after deposits an egg within the bud. She then immediately crawls down the stem and proceeds to sever the bud. The eggs hatch within five or six days, and in about three or four weeks the footless grubs become full-grown, coming out as adults about five days later. This new brood, upon emerging, will attack the leaves, making numerous small holes on the under surface, soon after picking time. As early as August 25 the beetles were found to go into hibernation last summer, within the strawberry fields, being found especially among the dead leaves. The older beds were found to be more seriously infested because of the fact that they wintered over in the small fields.