132 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



attacks of the wire-worm. Gravelly and sandy soils have. 

 in some neighbourhoods been found most affected. Waste 

 and wood lands, and old pastures, are "harbours for the 

 wire- worm." As a rule it may be accepted that "gravelly 

 and sandy soils are most infested, strong loam and clay most 

 free from them." Having thus glanced at the habits of 

 the wire-worm, the crops which it attacks, and the soils in 

 which they best flourish; we shall, in our next paper, take 

 up the consideration of the best means, or at least those 

 usually adopted in practice, either to prevent them from 

 committing their ravages, or at least greatly to modify them 

 and reduce them to a minimum of mischief. 



19. The Grub. The grub of the farm fieldspar emi- 

 nence, the scourge of our corn crops is the larvse of a fly 

 known vulgarly as the " daddy longlegs," " spinning-maggie," 

 and to natural historians as the "crane fly." Mr. Jamieson, in 

 one of his "Fordyce Agricultural Lectures," thus describes 

 the habits of the grub: "The fly makes its appearance in 

 greatest strength in July and August, and shortly after lays 

 its eggs. The number of eggs laid by one insect is very 

 numerous in one case he had counted as many as 600, 

 but the usual quantity was probably about 300. They 

 were deposited in grass land in a great variety of situations 

 in meadows, in lea-lands, by roadsides, the skirts of 

 plantations, in garden lawns, and even in the turf on the 

 roofs of cottages. How long the eggs lie before the lame 

 come out is not known, but, probably, the majority were 

 hatched in autumn or before winter; and they would 

 be found in the grub or larva state from January to August. 

 The eggs being deposited in grass land, it was accordingly 

 in the corn crop which had been sown in land ploughed up 

 out of grass that the larvae made their appearance that 

 was to say, in what farmers called their lea-corn. It was 

 rarely that they were found in the corn following a crop of 

 turnips neither was it found in a yaval crop, or a crop of 

 corn taken upon land that was under a grain crop the pre- 

 vious season. Although not complained of, there could be 

 no doubt that the grub is as plentiful in grass-land or pas- 



