CORN PESTS AND DISEASES 



257 



notches being eaten out, first in one direction and then 

 in another, until the roots are severed or consumed. 

 In the larger roots the larva may perhaps completely 

 bury itself. In well-grown corn it very commonly 

 bores into the stalk beneath the upper circle of brace 

 roots, or behind the sheath of the lower leaf, in which 

 habit it differs from the northern corn root worm. It 

 is a soft, slender-bodied, worm-like insect, a little over 



Fig 67— Beetle of Southern Corn Root Worm 



Enlarged five and two-thirds diameters (after Forbes) 



an inch long when full grown, and nearly ten times as 

 long as thick. 



The fact that its injuries to corn occur without 

 apparent reference to the crop of the previous year 

 makes it unlikely that the favorite method of rotation 

 will serve for the protection of corn against this species. 

 Sweet corn seems to be much more liable to injury 

 than the field varieties, from which fact we may sup- 

 mise that the time of planting has something to do with 



