156 INDIAN CORN. 



found successful, is to sprinkle a small quantity of fine- 

 cut tobacco on the surface of the ground, closely 

 around the plants. 



The following expedient is recommended in the 

 Farmers' Encyclopaedia : " A pair of old wheels are 

 to be fitted with projections like the cogs of a spur- 

 wheel in a mill, which must be so formed as to make 

 holes in the earth four inches deep during the turning 

 of the wheel. The smooth track which the wheels 

 make on the soft ground, induces the worm, in its noc- 

 turnal wanderings, to follow on till it tumbles into 

 the pit. It cannot climb out, and is destroyed by the 

 hot sun." 



A good practice to prevent the propagation of this 

 insect is to make bonfires in summer evenings when 

 the moth begins to appear. Multitudes of these will 

 swarm into the fire and be destroyed. 



For the wire- worm, the following preventive is 

 recommended by the American Institute Farmer's 

 Club : Take of plaster and wood ashes equal parts, 

 saturate the same with night soil from the privy vault, 

 haul to the field in barrels, and drop half a pint in 

 the bottom of each hill. 



An expedient practised in England and recom- 

 mended here, for destroying the wire-worm, consists 

 in burying slices of potato sufficiently near the planted 

 grain to attract the worm from it. These slices are 

 to be examined daily, and the larvae thus collected to 

 be destroyed. 



It is said that sowing a crop of white mustard 

 seed will effectually extirpate the wire-worm from 



