60 Vict. Provincial Board of Horticulture. 25 



This is a very difficult pest to deal with, ordinary insecticidal remedies not being appli- 

 cable. Prof. Smith advises fall ploughing of infested land, with heavy top-dressings of kainit 

 or muriate potash and nitrate of soda. Chickens should be encouraged to follow in the fresh 

 turned furrows to pick up the grubs. Although this pest is only reported from one point, it 

 is probably not confined to that place, and should be looked out for. 



The larvse of click.beetles (Ulateridce) are well known as " wire-worms." The species 



troublesome to us appear early in spring in the beetle form, and in some localities on the lower 



Mainland have been very injurious, destroying the blossoms of fruit-trees. 



Wire-worms. In this stage the only practical remedy so far has been to jar infested trees, 



which causes the beetles to fall, and remain quiescent for a short time, so that 



they may be collected on a sheet, spread for the purpose and destroyed. Mr. E. Hutcheson 



found this plan quite effective. 



To wire-worms in the soil, the direct application of insecticides is usually impracticable. 

 Methods of cultivation calculated to avoid injury are more satisfactory. 



Grass land known to be infested should be fall ploughed, and while this will not destroy 

 any large proportion of the larvse, it will kill most of the pupas and beetles then in the ground, 

 so if the practice be continued for a series of years, the insects will gradually run out. 



Frequent change of crops is also advised, and the growing of crops which require clean 

 cultivation. Miss Ormerod recommends the growing and ploughing in of mustard as a good 

 preventative measure. 



Mr. Fletcher says (Keport 1885, page 17) : — "Most of my correspondents agree that the 



attacks from wire-worms (sometimes called yellow worms) are much less severe upon well 



maniired, highly cultivated and well cleaned ground. Mr. William Miller, 



What Dr. ^^ Bridgetown, N.S., a gentleman of large experience and a successful farmer, 

 Fletcher says, ^^jj^ ^^ j^^ ^^^ ^-^^^^ ^^^ ground from wire-worms by high culture and careful 

 cleaning by the third crop. Where potatoes are grown they should be picked up immediately 

 they are dug, and most of the wire-worms will be taken out with them and can be destroyed. 

 He mentioned an instance of a piece^of land he had just cleared which, when he took it, was 

 so full of wire-worms that he had been able to gather them up by the handful from the bottom 

 of the cart in which the potatoes were drawn from the field. In confirmation of this, I give 

 the following quotation from the report which has just been issued by Mr. 0. Whitehead for 

 the Agricultural Department of the Imperial Privy Council Office in England : ' First and fore- 

 most among means of prevention (of wire-worms attacks on crops) is the abolition of weeds 

 from the land and from the outsides of fields.' This has been recognised and adopted long ago 

 by some agriculturists, for we find the following passage in Vol. XV. of the Journal of the 

 Royal Agricultural Society of England, in an essay upon the farming of light land, which is 

 always more liable to attacks of wire-worms. ' There is a farm in the neighbourhood of Guild- 

 ford which presents an instance of a perfectly clean farm, and kept so by deep ploughing and 

 unsparing use of horse and hand hoes. It has often been remarked that root crops and corn 

 are unmolested by wire-worms upon this farm. The owner asserts that he starved them long 

 a^o by growing no weeds to sustain them in the absence of a crop.' " 

 " The following is taken from the American Garden, and will do for horticulturists :— 



" Add three or four pounds of unslacked lime to every bushel of soil. This will make the 



wire-worms so sick that they will give the seedling carnations a wide berth in the future ; 



besides the health and colour of the plants will be so much improved that we 



Remedy for ^jjj ^^^^^^ ^j^^^^ ^-^^^ belong to a new race of pinks. The best way to use 



Wire-Worms, j^^^^ j^ ^.^ spread the soil 'in a flat heap ten or twelve inches thick, then place 



the desired amount of lime in lumps on the top. When the latter has become slaked and 



pulverised the soil should be turned over two or three times and thoroughly mixed, it is 



then ready for use." 



The parent beetle of the round-headed apple tree borer {Saperda Candida) is easily 

 recognised by the brown colour of its body, and the two conspicuous, longitudinal, whitish 

 stripes along its back. It appears early in the summer, and deposits its eggs on the tree 



