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Attacl: — Slender, cyliuflrical. yellowish or reddish-brown, tough au<l 

 shining grubs with flattened heads and darli jaws. These gi-ubs have only 

 three pairs of. legs on the three segments following the head, and a single 

 short, sucker-liUe foot in the middle of the last segment, beneath. Wlien full- 

 grown they are about an inch long and only about 1-12 of an inch wide. ^A•itll 

 these will be found many specimens in spring of about .iust half the size of 

 the larger ones. Wire-worms occur most frequently in low ground and attack 

 the roots of almost all plants, but particularly young wheat and corn just as 

 it is coming up. The.v also bore into the tubers of ijotatoes in autumn. This 

 injury is most frequent on laud which has been for several years in sod. and 

 the attack is most severe in the second season after the sod has been ploughed 

 down. 



Wire-worms are the grubs of a large family of beetles known as click- 

 beetles, easily recognized by their power of snapping their necks with a click 

 with such force as to siiring up into the air if the.y fall on their backs. 

 These beetles are many of them dark-brown in colour, of an elongated oval 

 form, about three times as long as broad, and tapering to the end of the body. 

 The eggs are laid in summer about the roots of grasses and weeds, and the 

 larvae of most species take two years to come to full growth. They change to 

 pupfe inside cells in the ground In July, and to perfect beetles about three 

 weeks later, in August. Jlost of these beetles, like the May Beetle, remain 

 in their pupal cells until the following spring before emerging. 



Remedies. — Agricultural methods are the only ones that have been of 

 much avail. The wire-worms which are injurious to the farmer are particu- 

 larly those which feed on the roots of grasses. When sod is ploughed down, 

 the larvie during the first year feed for the most part on the decaying grass 

 and its roots. Those in their second year of growth change to beetles in the 

 first year, aud do little harm, as they have had plenty of food in the decaying 

 sod without attacking the crop: but the young larvre, which were only half- 

 grown when the sod was broken, attack the crop of the following year, 

 because there is nothing else on the laud for them to eat. It has been found 

 that barley aud rye are less attacked than any others of the small grains, and 

 also that clover is little injured. Those early maturing grains are. therefore, 

 better suited as a crop for the second season after sod, because the laud can 

 be iJloughed immediately after they are harvested, and thus the pupse and the 

 freshly formed and still soft beetles are disturbed in their pupal cells, and 

 many of them destroyed. Clover may be sowed In spring with either of 

 these crops, and either ploughed down with the stubble in September or left 

 on the land until the following autumn, when the land should be ploughed as 

 soon as there is a good growth after the first cutting. A short rotation in 

 which laud is not left in grass for more than two years, will, to a large 

 measure, prevent the ravages of wire-worms. I'rof. S. A. Forbes recommends 

 ploughing down sod in autumu and sowing to fall wheat or r.ve, with clover 

 on tliese in the spring, the clover to be left for two years and then followed 

 by corn or roots. Some farmers have obtained good results in clearing land 

 of wire-worms by ploughing twice in the same autumu, the first time in August, 

 the land to bo well harrowed a week later, and then cross-ploughed in 

 September. 



