March 1895.] 



INJUBIOUS INSECTS AND FUNGI. 



315 



the wireworms are attracted by the smell of the rape and feed 

 upon it in preference to the corn crops, while these grow away 

 from their attacks in the meantime. 



When old pasture is converted to hop land it would be well 

 to burn the turf, in order to destroy tlie wireworms. Ploughing 

 it in deeply will be of no avail whatever, and liming or gas 

 liming, unless it is done on a very liberal scale, will not be of 

 much use. 



Land known to be infested should not be kept down to seeds 

 for more than one year, and after the first cut; sheep should be 

 heavily folded on the land and the herbage kept closely fed off. 

 When ploughed for wheat, the land should be pressed in order 

 to make a firm seed bed. 



In turnips, mangels, and grass the presence of wireworms 

 is often not so apparent, and may remain undetected. A winter 

 fallow is desirable after a bad attack in wheat, oat, and barley 

 crops, in which damage is plain and manifest. In this case the 

 land should be cultivated immediately after harvest and moved 

 constantly, so that nothing may grow. Early in the spring the 

 ground should be stirred again and vetches sown^ of which 

 ■wireworms do not seem to be very fond. 



Good, clean, and deep cultivation checks the spread of wire- 

 worms. In Vol. XIV., 1st series, of the Journal of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society of England in the course of an essay on the 

 farming of light land, which is always more liable to the attacks 

 of wireworms than heavy soils, a case is quoted of a farm in 

 the neighbourhood of Guildford, kept perfectly clean by deep 

 ploughing and unsparing use of horse and hand hoes, where 

 the root and corn crops are stated to have been unmolested by 

 wireworms ; the owner asserting that he starved them out by 

 growing no weeds to sustain them in the absence of a crop. 



For wheat plants attacked by wireworms, it is desirable to roll 

 the land, as early as possible in the spring, with a ring roller, 

 after putting on 30 or 40 bushels of soot per acre, or a mixture^ 

 of lime and soot in the proportion of one bushel of lime to two 

 of soot. 



A dressing of from one to one and a half cwt. of nitrate of 

 soda per acre would stimulate growth and force the plants away 

 from the wireworms ; or guano or sulphate of ammonia might 

 be used ; or any other manure quick in action. Rolling with 

 plain and ring rollers should be repeated, if necessarj^ Driving 

 sheep over the wheat plants has been found serviceable. Neither 

 this nor rolling kills the wireworms, as some think, but by 

 pressing the earth round the wheat plants, either process may 

 at least tend to keep the insects from the roots, for a time. 



When oats and barley are attacked, dressing with soot and 

 rolling should be tried, or nitrate of soda to stimulate the plants. 

 Five to seven hundredweights of rape cake should be sown 

 broadcast when the infestation is very severe, to entice the wire- 

 worm from the corn plants. It should be harrowed in if 

 possible. 



