MISCELLANEOUS. 593 



followed in our country as closely, notwithstanding its great importance in pre- 

 venting the start of fires. Where the soot can be obtained it is worthy of a trial. 



3. Wire-worms among strawberry vines may be destroyed by a liberal use 

 of wood ashes, or some other form of potash. 



4. Wire-Worms, to Starve, or Destroy, When the Ground 

 is Pull by Summer-Fallow and Salt.— A Michigan farmer writes to 

 the New York Tribune, desiring information in relation to the treatment of 

 low river-bottom land, on which he has failed to get a catch of cultivated grass. 

 He says the original sod of wild grass was turned over and a fair crop of buck- 

 wheat grown ; but the seeding of a cultivated grass was a failure, at least in 

 spots. That the next season the land was well prepared and planted to com, 

 which wire-worms destroyed. To this the agricultural editor of that journal 

 replies : " The corn crop being destroyed by wire-worms is evidence that the 

 same insect destroyed the grass seeding. I have never known any crop to grow 

 uninjured, except buckwheat, on land infested with wire-worms. Weeds and 

 some wild grasses, having a hard and tough root, like the buckwheat, will 

 grow ; but the more delicate grasses and grain crops are destroyed. The best 

 means of getting rid of the worms is to starve them, or they may be otherwise 

 destroyed by the liberal use of salt, say at the rate of two barrels per acre ; or 

 sowing two crops of buckwheat in succession, keeping the land well cultivated 

 during the time the crops do not occupy it, so that the worms can find nothing 

 to feed upon, will starve them, as they cannot feed on the buckwheat root, it 

 being too hard. 



" I have in two instances destroyed this insect by a thorough summer-fal- 

 low. A field of some ten acres of flat and mucky land was so full of worms 

 that no crop could be successfully grown. This I desired to cultivate. The 

 land was plowed late in the fall, and the following season plowed four or five 

 times, at intervals, so that nothing was allowed to grow, since which time, 

 some 20 years, no worms have been seen or their work. In another case a 

 field of about 20 acres had been much damaged by them. It was summer-fal- 

 lowed and plowed but three times, with intermediate cultivation with harrow 

 and cultivator, so that nothing grew and no signs of the worm have appeared 

 since, which was some six years ago, a crop of grain or grass having been 

 grown annually since. I would advise the inquirer to summer-fallow his land 

 one season in this thorough manner, allowing nothing to grow to feed the 

 worms; then seed, first of October, to grass, of such variety as he desires to 

 raise, without any grain crop with it, and I think he will gain his object of a 

 good seeding." 



^cmarA».— Although this edition does not speak of applying salt, the season 

 of summer-fallowing, yet, I should certainly do so ; and by the way, it has 

 been found the refuse salt, which can be obtained at salt-boiling houses, can be 

 got much cheaper than good salt, while it also contains chemical properties 

 which make it much better than common salt as a fertilizer. This has been 

 proved at the Saginaw. Two birds again killed with one stone, where this can 



