THE GRUB. 137 



there the wire-worm first destroys the crops along the 

 ridges and gradually descends towards the furrows. Ano- 

 ther experience is, that the wire-worm is particularly dan- 

 gerous to such crops as are preceded by clover, the rotting 

 remains of the clover keeping the soil loose and dry. Even 

 more ! we have whole tracts of land which formerly were 

 wet and stiff, but of late have quite changed their qualities 

 by being underdrained. .Now on such lands the wire-worm 

 was entirely unknown before the drainage; but as soon as 

 the drains were showing their effects the wire-worm made 

 his appearance, and soon became a great plague. 



"Now to the remedy. Destroy the looseness of your 

 land, and you will not be troubled by the wire- worm. We 

 have taken a flock of sheep and driven them up and down 

 on a field sown previously with oats, and there never ap- 

 peared a worm as far as the sheep had come, though the 

 rest of the field had to suffer hard. 'The sheep has a 

 golden foot,' says an old adage; their small feet are the 

 best roller known, but it is an expensive job ; our shep- 

 herds hate it ; it is no advantage to the flock, and 400 

 sheep can do only a small day's work. So we employ 

 other means. 



" Five years, ago we used to think that thorough har- 

 rowing was the only means to prevent depredations by the 

 wire-worm. I have frequently heard some of our best and 

 most successful farmers say that the fate of the crop de- 

 pended on the harrow. I have seen fields harrowed twelve 

 and even sixteen times after the throwing on of the seed. 

 My old chief had a walking-stick with a sharp point, and 

 he was all day walking over the field to try whether he 

 could find a loose spot. He would push his stick into the 

 ground, and as long as a hollow place was to be discovered 

 the teams had to keep on. ' The horses' hoofs must tramp 

 it hard,' he would say, when our patience sometimes be- 

 came exhausted. Frequently when I thought of sending 

 the teams home for the night, he would come out with his 

 stick and the tired horses had to begin anew, and many a 

 field was so treated hours after the moon had risen. I say 

 K 



