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Treatment (Female flies are prevented)

The female flies are prevented from laying eggs, and the larvae may be destroyed, by the employment of dressings of such materials as gas lime or soaper's ashes. Common salt has also been found useful, in the proportion of about half a ton to the acre, just before the ground is ploughed. Deep ploughing is very beneficial. To enable the crops to resist attacks, the most effectual method is to stimulate growth by dressings of guano or other manures, so as to render the plants less liable to serious injury, even if partially eaten. The use of heavy rollers has been recommended for lawns, and this would probably kill those grubs that lie close to the surface; but they are not very liable to injury from pressure, unless it is very considerable. Traps, as recommended under Crane Fly, consisting of slices of turnip, potato, or other fleshy roots or tubers, may be employed with success for the protection of choice plants or crops. They should be sunk a few inches below the surface of the soil, and be examined every two or three days, the grubs found in them being removed and destroyed.

Certain birds, especially starlings and rooks, are very useful in reducing the number of grubs, of which they eat multitudes; they ought, therefore, to be encouraged. Among the most productive breeding-grounds of grubs (as well as of other pests of gardening and of agriculture) are uncultivated corners or edges of shrubberies and fields, where weeds are allowed to grow unchecked from year to year. It is advisable to get rid, as thoroughly as possible, of such sources of trouble.