48 IXSKCTS INJURIOUS TO STAPLE CROPS. 



seriously defoliated. As the beetles remain in the pupal 

 cells over winter and are still tender, not fully hardened, 

 deep fall plowing will destroy a large number of them by 

 breaking open the pupal cells and exposing them to the 

 weather, and by burying or crushing them. But possibly 

 the best method of preventing serious injury by white 

 grubs, and one which will not only be of benefit in securing 

 immunity from the attacks of this as well as many other 

 insect pests, but will also cause less drain upon the soil, 

 is a judicioiTS rotation of crops, avoiding a continual 

 growth of grass in any one field. 



Wireworms {Elateridm). 



Injury. — The ^o\\ has been properly prepared and the 

 field carefully planted. Day after day the anxious farmer 

 awaits the sprouting of the young shoots of grain. But 

 all in v^nl Still no signs of growth appear. So, appre- 

 hensive that he lose the use of the land, he removes the 

 earth from some of the seed and there finds the kernels of 

 corn or wheat either with a small round hole drilled 

 through them or some " hard, smooth, shining, reddish 

 or yellowish-brown, slender, cylindrical, six-legged larvae " 

 still devouring the seeds, with their heads firmly embedded 

 in them. If he be a man of any experience, he at once 

 recognizes the work of wireworms and wastes no time in 

 reseeding his field, for of all the insects attacking grain in 

 the seed, these are the most common and destructive. If 

 later on the resown seed secures a start, its growth is 

 exceedingly liable to be stunted by the worms attacking 

 the smaller roots, and it may even be killed when several 

 inches high by their boring through the underground 



