HOW TO GROW GOOD CORN. 193 



and they mostly apply to other grains also — namely, 

 1. The germinating plant ; 2. The growing plant ; 

 3. The growing flower; 4. The green ear of corn; 

 5. The young grain ; 6. The perfected grain ; 7. The 

 stored grain ; and 8. In the state of flour. 



1. The Slug may be described as a houseless snail. 

 There are several species, but the milky slug (Limax 

 agrestis) and the black slug (L. ater) are those most 

 common to our corn crops, and are more especially 

 mischievous to wheat ; for, as this crop usually suc- 

 ceeds clover or " seeds," in which they breed most 

 rapidly, so, the older the clover lea, the more eggs 

 will be ready to hatch in the wheat crop, and this all 

 the more readily as the wheat is nearly always put in 

 with a single ploughing, and with as little cultivation 

 as possible. 



The best remedy will be found in encouraging 

 insectivorous birds — the lark, rook, starling, peewit, 

 and others, eating them either in the egg or young 

 state with great avidity ; a good assistance to whose 

 labours may be supplied in a few broods of ducks 

 from the farmyard, which it will pay well to have 

 tended by a good boy — where such can be found — as 

 these birds are most efficient as destroyers of slugs 

 and caterpillars. 



Store pigs turned into old leas, where they can do 

 no mischief, will get no bad living where snails and 

 insects abound. 



Wire-worms. — The several species of beetle which 

 produce the wire- worm belong to the genus Mater. 

 They are of a long oval shape : about half the length 

 belongs to the head and thorax, and the other to 

 the abdomen. Every schoolboy knows that when 



