206 Season 0/ 1816. 



be worth trying, whether cane brimstone, (a very cheap 

 article,) finely powdered and mixed with plaster above 

 ground, would not check the depredations of the worm. 

 Holes made near the plants have destroyed inconceivable 

 multitudes, as have perpendicular- sided, narrow trenches, 

 between the corn field and grass or clover land. Amos 

 Harvey, a respectable maltster and farmer on Brandy wine, 

 speaks of many bushels being taken in this manner by a 

 person in his neighbourhood. 



I have pulled up many plants of wheat, diseased with 

 the stunt ; in some I have found a tough, slender, red- 

 dish worm, (I believe the true wire worm,) in the core 

 of the root ; in others, the fibres have been decayed, and 

 many covered with a light grey or whitish mould, ap- 

 pearing like lime-clean seasonable tilth. Sound, plump 

 seed, and timely manuring, with ripe dung, I believe to 

 be the only preventives. 



I remain, thy sincere friend, 



Henry Cox. 

 Roberts Vaux. 



It has been long suspected, that insects were the cau- 

 ses of the stunt in wheat. The wire worm in England, 

 produces the same effect. The remedy is there to steep 

 the seed, or roll it in quick lime. In our appendix to 

 volume 2, pages 95, 96, Mr. Sommerville recommends 

 mixing lime with dung, (to destroy insects,) after the fer- 

 mentation has sufficiently progressed. It will be seen in 

 a paper in the present volume, that success has attended 

 a change of seed, (so far as respects the stunt,) from the 



