4 FARMERS’ BULLETIN 125. 
sod, and when its natural food supply is abundant it produces no 
appreciable disturbance in the meadows. When the sod land is 
broken, however, these wireworms gather in the drill rows or hills of 
corn, which is the usual crop to follow sod in the eastern United 
States, and often cause an absolute failure of the crop by destroying 
the seed and eating off the roots of such plants as may sprout. They 
also sometimes bore into the underground part of the stem of the 
plant. This wireworm is, therefore, usually more destructive on 
land recently broken from sod. However, in many cases the damage 
is more severe the second year following plowing from sod than the 
first. This is probably due to the fact that the wireworms feed upon 
the recently turned-down sod the first year, but are forced to attack 
the cultivated crop the second year, because by that time the sod 
has entirely decomposed. The wireworms spend three years in the 
soil before changing to beetles. 
LIFE HISTORY. 
The beetles come out of the ground in the early spring, during 
April and May. They then fly about and deposit their eggs in grass- 
lands, the female beetles burrowing into the ground or under rubbish 
to deposit their eggs. The young wireworms feed during the ensuing 
summer and pass their first winter about half grown. The following 
spring they resume feeding and feed throughout the second summer, 
passing their second winter as full-grown wireworms. The third 
spring they again resume feeding, which they continue until early in 
July. They then leave the plants and form small earthen cells in 
the ground, and in these they transform to beetles. During the 
remainder of that summer and the third winter the beetles stay in 
the cells in which they transformed; then, during the fourth spring 
of their life they come out of the ground to lay their eggs. 
CROPS ATTACKED. 
The wheat wireworm feeds upon the seeds and roots of corn, potato 
tubers, wheat roots, carrots, turnips, and the underground stems of 
string beans, cucumbers, and cabbage, more or less seriously damag- 
ing or destroying the same. 
REMEDIAL MEASURES. 
When the land is intended for corn the following year, in order to 
counteract the ravages of the wheat wireworm, sod land should be 
plowed immediately after the first hay cutting, usually early in July. 
This land should be cultivated deeply throughout the remainder of 
the summer. Land that is in corn and badly infested should be 
deeply cultivated, even at the risk of slightly root-pruning the corn. 
