32 



" If the ground must all be used, I would suggest the following ex- 

 periment, although I cannot say what the result will be, as I have not 

 known of its being tried : Coat the seed corn in coal tar, not too thick. 



" This has been suggested to me, and if compatible with the growth 

 of the corn, would certainly have a strong tendency to prevent the 

 worms from attacking the grains; but it would of course make 

 hand planting necessary. 



" But preventing them from attacking the grains does not by any 

 means prevent them from injuring the young root and plumule or 

 stalk, nor will any application prevent this. The worms must be 

 destroyed in order to prevent them from injuring the crop." 



There is no doubt but what something may be found which will pre- 

 vent them from destroying the kernels, but this will only drive them 

 to the stalk and roots as soon as they appear. 



Unfortunately these injurious species appear to have no parasites 

 which attack them, at least none so far as I am aware have yet been 

 discovered. But our feathered friends, the birds and domestic fowls, 

 are very fond of them, and when they are turned up by the plow 

 greedily devour them. Hogs, when allowed to run in the infested 

 fields, root into the ground and devour a great many. 



THE BORERS. 



I have received during the past two years numerous letters from 

 various parts of Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Missouri, complaining of 

 the borers, and inquiring as to the best remedies by which to coun- 

 teract them. I have communicated through the Agricultural papers 

 in answer to these letters and inquiries, and also presented to the 

 Horticultural Society of Northern Illinois an article on the subject, 

 which was published in the transactions of the Illinois Horticultural 

 Society for 1875, (vol. 9), and from which I have freely drawn in this 

 article. 



As most of the species herein alluded to, have already been describ- 

 ed in this report, I refer the reader to what is said in regard to them 

 and will not repeat it here, as I here speak of the Borers more as a 

 (lass of insects than of the particular species. 



Their habits and methods of operating are very different, some con- 

 lining their operations to the trunks of trees into which they bore 

 from the time they escape from the egg until they have completed 

 their larval growth, boring channels or burrows, up, down or through 

 the solid wood. Some penetrate to the interior of the bark, between 

 which and the wood they reside, mining passages and burrows partly 

 in the bark and partly in the wood, or in the one where it joins the 

 other. Others work their way into the heart of twigs where they 

 remain during the larval state, moving slowly along the pith. Oth- 

 ers select the roots as their place of operating; others the canes of 

 vines, and others the stems of annual plants. But no two of these modes 

 is ever followed by the same species. The trunk-borer is never a 

 twig-borer or a cane-borer, nor is a trunk, twig or cane-borer ever a 

 true root-borer. 



The borers that injure useful vegetation, and it is onty to these I 

 allude at present, belong to three orders, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera and 



