INSECTS. 127 



swollen kernel in the ground. It has not proved 

 very destructive. A tarring of the seed befcft-e 

 planting will doubtless keep off the maggot. 



Wire worms (Elateridce). These are the larvae 

 (grubs) of the common snapping beetles, of 

 which there are many species. These worms 

 (Fig. 41) are greatly 

 abundant only in new- 

 ly-plowed meadows. fig. 4i.-wibb worm. 



They eat into and destroy the kernels of corn 

 or eat off the germinating shoot or roots. 

 Lintner says the best preventive in infested 

 fields is starving out by crops 

 of buckwheat or peas.* Fall 

 plowing of sod land is thought 

 desirable by many farmers, the 

 grubs being disturbed and ^'"•^''wllfr^™^ 

 frozen out. Fig. 42 is of the False wire worm 

 (lulus). 



y. Affecting the roots.— Corn plant louse (Aphis 

 maidis, Fitch). Small, pale green lice, covered 

 with a whitish mealy substance, feed below the 

 surface on the juices of the corn root. Large 

 numbers of these will be fqund about the roots 

 of one plant. Later in the season great num- 

 bers of dull black and green aphis are found on 

 the leaves, husks and tassels.of the plant, which 

 are the same insects in a different stage of de- 



* Eighth report on the injurious and other insects of the 

 State of New York for the year 1891, p. 283. 



