WIREWORMS DESTRUCTIVE TO CEREAL AND FORAGE CROPS. 5 
This should be continued as long as the corn can be cultivated, and 
as soon as the crop is removed the field should be very thoroughly 
tilled before sowing to wheat. In regions where wheat is seeded 
down for hay, any treatment of infested wheat fields is precluded. 
Where wheat is not followed by seeding to other crops, the field 
should be plowed as soon as the wheat is harvested; this kills the 
worms by destroying their food supply and preventing proper 
hibernation. 
A thorough preparation of the corn land and a liberal use of barn- 
yard manure or other fertilizer will often give a fair stand of corn in 
spite of the wireworms, a vigorous stand often being able to produce 
roots enough to withstand the depredations of several wireworms. 
Though not always practicable, 
the interposing of crops not se- 
verely attacked by wireworms, 
such as field peas and buck- 
wheat, between sod and corn 
would materially reduce the 
number of wireworms in the soil 
at the time the crop is planted. 
THE CORN WIREWORMS. 
The beetles of the corn wire- 
worms (fig. 3, @) measure from 
one-half to three-fourths inch in 
length, and they vary in color 
from light reddish brown to al- 
most black. The wireworms 
(fig. 3, b) are reddish brown, F1G. 3.—One of thecorn wireworms: a, Adult; b, larva 
about 14 inches long, eylindri- c, last segments of same; d, pupa. All eilarged. 
; (From Chittenden.) 
cal in shape, and always have 
three slight lobes or projections on the tail. These wireworms are 
pests to cereal and forage crops in the Middle Atlantic States, the 
New England States, and the Mississippi Valley. 
LIFE HISTORY. 
The beetles of these wireworms emerge in the spring and deposit 
their eggs in grasslands. The corn wireworms, however, spend a con- 
siderably longer time in the soil than the wheat wireworms. in some 
cases the corn wireworms live in the ground as long as six years. 
They change to beetles during August, and some beetles spend the 
following winter in the cell in which they transform. The beetles of 
some kinds of corn wireworms apparently spend the winter under the 
bark of decaying trees. 
