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Vol. IV, Nos. 7 and 8. ] INSECT LIFE. ~— TIssued March, 1892. 
SPECIAL NOTES. 
A Bulletin on Wireworms.*—Prof. J. H. Comstock and his assistant, 
Mr. M. V. Slingerland, have just published a very full and careful bul- 
letin on the subject of Wireworms. The bulk of the bulletin is taken 
up with an account of a careful and extensive series of experiments for 
preventing the ravages of these insects or for destroying them in their 
different states. The preventive experiments were conducted entirely 
in the direction of protecting seed. The following substances were 
used: Paris green and flour, tar, salt solution, copper solution, chloride 
of lime and copperas solution, kerosene oil, turpentine, and a strychnine 
solution. The details of the experiments show that no practical results 
are likely to be obtained in this direction. 
The results of the experiments for the destruction of the larve show 
that it is not worth while to attempt to starve out the worms by leav- 
ing land in fallow through the season; that the growing of Buckwheat, 
Mustard, or Rape upon infested land does not rid it of Wireworms. 
Kerosene emulsion and pure kerosene as well as crude petroleum, while 
moderately effective, are not recommended on account of their cost. 
The killing power of salt, kainit, muriate of potash, lime, chloride of 
lime, and gas lime upon the larve was carefully tested with the result 
that salt was found to be the only substance from which any prac- 
tical results were obtained. Used at the rate of eight tons per acre the 
worms will be destroyed, but there will be no chance for vegetation for 
Some time afterwards, and as a matter of course the remedy will be so 
expensive as to preclude its use except upon very valuable land. So 
far in the course of the experimentation against the larve, scarcely 
any practical results have been obtained, but the work against the adult 
beetles was more satisfactory. Fall plowing is shown to destroy the 
perfect insects. The early recommendations in regard to trapping the 
beetles with baits of clover and dough are repeated. Trap lanterns 
were used without satisfactory result. The closing portions of the bul- 
letin include a consideration of the life-history of Agriotes mancus, As- 
aphes decoloratus, Melanotus communis, Drasterius elegans, and Crypto- 
* Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 33. 
231 
