GENERAL CROP PESTS 79 



these consists in avoiding for the planting of vegetable crops 

 land which is already known to contain white grubs and espe- 

 cially grasslands, whether meadow or prairie. Corn fields should 

 not be planted to root crops and the like without rotation with 

 clover or other immune crops. Summer fallowing of infested 

 land is said to be useful. 



Rotation of crops is valuable in connection with fall plowing. 

 In case infested land is desired for the planting of corn, beets, 

 potatoes, or other crop subject to severe injuries by white grubs, 

 an application of fertilizer, such as nitrate of soda or kainit, 

 put on as a heavy top dressing after the ground is prepared and 

 before planting, has proved of benefit in some cases. 



Domestic animals.— Much good may be accomplished by en- 

 couraging domestic fowls to follow in the furrows to pick up 

 the grubs as they are turned up by the plow. Hogs are also 

 exceedingly fond of white grubs, and if allowed the run of 

 localities where these are abundant, after the crop is made, they 

 will root up the ground and devour great numbers of them. 



WIREWORMS 



Of similar importance to white grubs as general farm pests 

 are the wireworms. Though not related to the white grubs, 

 they have very similar habits, the injurious vegetable-feeding 

 forms being strictly subterranean and subsisting at the expense 

 of various crops, especially corn, cereals, and grasses, but at- 

 tacking, in the absence of these, various vegetables and other 

 plants. The subject of soil and environment as regards attack 

 by wireworms has not been thoroughly studied, but certain 

 species are more numerous in sandy lands, and others are almost 

 always found in unbroken prairies and in wild grasses. Thus 

 it happens that, as in the case of white grubs, injury is most 

 apt to occur when corn and other vegetables are planted in old 

 sod, along the borders of marshes, in pastures and meadows. 



Nearly every tiller of the soil is familiar with wireworms, 



