FRUITS. CHAP. 



grub, for it is not black. In its workings, it is half way 

 between a rook-worm and a caterpillar. It lies snugly 

 under the ground near the roots of the plant in the day- 

 time, and comes up at night, eats the plant off at the 

 stem, or eats out its heart. This is a most perverse as 

 well as a most pernicious thing : it is not content, like 

 the caterpillar, the snail, or the slug, to feed upon the 

 leaves ; but it must needs bite out the heart, or just cut 

 off the plant at the bottom. Lime has no power over 

 it : nothing will keep it off: no means but taking it by 

 the hand : in a garden this may be done, by examining a 

 little about the ground just round the stem of every 

 plant ; for as soon as it has destroyed one plant, it gets 

 ready for another for the next night's work. In a gar- 

 den, this thing may be destroyed, or kept down j but, in 

 a field it is impossible, and many a fielu has had its crop 

 almost totally destroyed by this grub. 



306. WIRE-WORM. -This is a little yellow worm, 

 which, at full growth, is about an inch long ; and it is 

 called wire-worm because it is very tough and difficult to 

 pinch asunder. It is bred in grass-land, and in old tufts of 

 grass in arable land. A piece of land digged or ploughed 

 up from a meadow, or grass-field, will, for a year or two, 

 be full of these worms, which carry off whole fields of 

 wheat sometimes. In gardens they are very destructive. 

 They attack tender- rooted plants, make a hole on one 

 side of the tap-root, and work their way upwards till 

 they come to the heart. When they have done that, they 

 go to another plant, and so on. You perceive when 

 they are at work, by the plant dropping its leaves j and 

 the only remedy is, to watch the plants narrowly, and, as 

 soon as you perceive the tips of the leaves beginning to 



