Garden Pests in New Zealand: A Popular Manual for Practical Gardeners, Farmers and Schools
John Stuart Mill · en
ROUND-HEADED BORERS.--Apple, almond, and citrus trees, together
with gooseberry and such ornamental and shelter trees as poplars,
tree-lucerne, and goat-willow, are sometimes damaged by round-headed
borers, which tunnel in the stems and branches. These borers (Fig. 12d)
are white in colour, narrow-bodied, and cylindrical, the segments
being usually well defined, and belong to a group of beetles known
as long-horned beetles, a group of insects to which the common hu-hu
beetle belongs. These beetles are narrow-bodied, and their antennæ are
comparatively long and conspicuous.
To control these pests, the only thing to do is to cut out and burn
the badly-infested parts. Where a borer is located (and this can be
frequently done by the presence of the powdered wood ejected from the
burrows), the culprit may be killed by injecting into the tunnel some
carbon bisulphide and plugging up the openings with some clay or other
similar substance.
LEAF-MINING FLIES.--Very often the leaves of cineraria and
chrysanthemum are disfigured by the tortuous tunnellings of the maggots
of minute flies (Fig. 12e). The adult insects are two-winged, and in
structure resemble in many respects miniature houseflies. The eggs
are laid in the leaf tissues, in which the whole development of the
maggots and pupæ takes place. The white maggots are small, legless and
headless. Spraying with black-leaf 40 would act as a deterrent to the
flies, while infested leaves should be removed and destroyed before
infestation becomes general.
GRASS GRUB(_Odontria zealandica_).--As explained in the preceding
chapter, the grass grub is the larva of a native cockchafer beetle
(Fig. 11, 1). This grub, by feeding upon roots, causes extensive damage
to pastures and lawns, as well as to many garden plants, including
strawberries. In the case of pasture and lawns, the presence of even a
considerable number of grass grubs is not detrimental unless they occur
concentrated in definite areas, when the damage is pronounced. With
garden plants, however, which are isolated when compared with the dense
root masses of grasses, the attacks of one or two grubs upon the roots
of a single plant may cause serious injury.