136 
it would long ago have seriously threatened the profitable continuance 
of corn culture in the very part of the country best adapted to that 
great crop. Even as it is, its injuries are undoubtedly to be reckoned 
by millions of dollars annually* , although the essential facts concerning 
its ravages and their ready and complete prevention were officially and 
widely published nine years agot. 
INJURIES TO CORN. 
The presence of this insect first betrays itself in badly infested 
fields when the plant is a foot or so high. If at this time patches of 
corn are observed which seem to be standing still, so that the plants 
adjacent leave them behind, giving the field an uneven appearance, it 
is possible—especially if the field has been in corn two years or more 
preceding—that this retardation of growth is due to the presence of 
this corn root worm. In this case, if the corn be pulled up, many of 
the larger roots will be seen to be short and stubbed and rotten at the 
ends. On others a deadened brown line will be found, running irregu- 
larly lengthwise, while still other roots may be dead their whole length. 
Possibly when the earth is shaken off a slender white grub will be dis- 
covered, two fifths of an inch long and about as thick as a pin; but 
more frequently the observer must carefully split or peel some of the 
affected roots, when a slender sinuous brown burrow filled with exere- 
ment wil be exposed, running from one end of the root to the other, 
usually with the root worm just mentioned somewhere in its course. 
This grub is white, except the head, the top of the first segment of the 
body, and a little patch on the last segment, which are yellowish brown. 
The body is smooth and eylindrieal, the head is short, deep, and rounded, 
and the tip of the body is also bluntly rounded off, somewhat like 
that of a common grub. These last characters will serve to distinguish 
it from small wireworms which are often found in such situations, but 
which are usually flattened from above, especially at the head, while in 
them the end of the body is commonly more or less toothed or notched 
or pointed. The grubs or larve of several small flies will often be 
found about the roots of corn, and eareless or unskilled observers have 
occasionally mistaken these for the corn root worm, but this latter in- 
sect has six short legs on the three segments just behind the head, while 
the grubs of flies are footless. We have seen as many as fifteen or _ 
twenty to a hill, and I do not doubt that in fields heavily attacked they 
are much more numerous. As the root dies, however, it is forsaken and 
another is attacked, until, not infrequently, almost every root will be- 
come infested as fast as it puts forth. This damage may thus extend 
to the practical destruction of the entire root growth, and the conse- 
quent death of the plant; or it may remain miserably dwarfed, six 
inches, perhaps, when other plants measure four or five feet. If the. 
stem is perforated above the roots, the injury is probably due to the 
southern root worm or to some of the species of wireworms, which one 
ean only be told by finding the insect itself. 
* Webster estimates the damage to corn in twenty-four counties of Indiana in 
1885 at two million dollars, basing this judgment on a loss of $16,000 by one large 
farmer, and on his personal knowledge of its distribution and abundance in that 
State. 
+ Twelfth Rep. State Ent. Ill., pp. 29, 30. 
‘ 
