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its importance is now beginning to be understood ; for the faimer finds 

 that he has innunaerable hosts of active httle enemies to contend with, 

 which are always at work, devouring and destroying his crops. The 

 hmits of this paper will not permit me to give a full description of 

 these pests of the farm ; but as the wire- worm is a special enemy to 

 the potato, I will give some description of it. 



The wire-worm is found in almost every chmate, and feeds indiscrim- 

 inately on every kind of cultivated crop ; it attacks the potato in vari- 

 ous stages of growth, frequently destroying the sets in the spring — eat- 

 ing into the roots, and cutting down the blossoming stems in sum- 

 mer. 



It is said that more than seventy species of beetles are the parents 

 of wire-worms ; these beetles are called elaters, spring-beetles, <fec., from 

 a power they possess of leaping up when placed on their backs, and 

 the noise they make in so doing. These beetles lay their eggs in the 

 roots of weeds or grass, and frequently in old neglected dung-heaps, 

 which form a snug retreat for the young wire-worms ; they continue in 

 the form of larva or worms for the space of five years, during which 

 time they make woful destruction among roots of eveiy kind. A full- 

 grown wire-worm is an inch in length, of a shining yellow color ; at the 

 end of five years, the wire-worm fonns a cell in the earth, in which it 

 moults, and becomes a pupa or chrysalis ; this chiysalis becomes a bee- 

 tle in three weeks. In its winged state it is harmless, merely fiying 

 from flower to flower. 



Many means of banishing the wire-woi-m have been tried, with va- 

 ried success ; these experiments have proved that Avhite mustard seed, 

 sown as a crop, wiU banish them; soda ash at the rate of two cwt. to 

 the acre, will destroy them ; chloride of lime will kill them ; salt, 

 used as a manure, kills them ; rolling land, tends to drive them away. 

 But of all the plans which have been tried, nothing succeeds so well as 

 a proper rotation of crops, the total extu-pation of weeds, and the care- 

 ful management of manure. 



BE EARLY. 



In preparing your land for potatoes, as well as in every future oper- 

 ation connected with their cultivation, be as early as you possibly can. 

 Plow your land early in the fall, that all roots, whether of grass, or com, 

 clover, or wheat, may be decomposed and ready to furnish food to the 

 roota of the potato. 



