158 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



exempt from the attacks of special Conifer-feeding insects, Their 

 chief enemies are the polyphagous wireworms, the larvae of the 

 "click-beetles" Agriotes, Athous, Doloijius, &c., and the gruhs 

 of the cockchafer Melolontha. 



WiEEWOEMS. 



Wireworms occasionally do much harm in ground newly 

 broken for nursery purposes. The damage lessens when the 

 ground has been cultivated for some time, for the destruction 

 during the first year or two is due to wireworms, which, having 

 sprung from eggs laid before the bed was formed, exist already in 

 the soil. When trees are actually growing there the parent 

 beetles lay eggs less readily or not at all, and thus the bed is 

 gradually cleansed. 



When very young Conifers are attacked they are gnawed 

 completely through just above the roots, and such cut plants 

 sometimes strew the bed. Seeds are also destroyed before 

 germination. There is a risk of the importation of wireworms in 

 turf, earth, or possibly in manure ; and associated with them in 

 the work of destruction are the millepedes [lulus, &c.) or 

 " thousand legs," commonly confounded with them. True wire- 

 worms are hard, somewhat flattened, of a bright yellow-brown 

 in the species under consideration ; they possess twelve segments 

 after the small head and six short legs on the first three seg- 

 ments. Millepedes have a varying number of segments, which 

 may exceed forty, very nearly all of which bear tioo pairs of legs. 



In one bad case of attack on seedlings which has come under 

 my notice, in which the systematic collection of the insects 

 was tried, the millepedes were, if anything, more abundant than 

 the wireworms, but no observations were made as to their share 

 of the destruction. 



It is desirable to examine the ground selected for the nursery, 

 and to reject the plot if it appears badly infested, or to cleanse 

 it thoroughly before planting. As the acreage required is small, 

 there should be no difficulty in doing this by methods known and 

 practised in agriculture, such as paring off and burning two inches 

 of the top-soil early in the autumn, or dressing with gas-lime, 

 chloride of lime, or ammoniacal waste, and leaving it fallow till 

 the effect of the poison has worn off. Fallow land kept clean 

 and free from weeds during the period of egg-laying in June will 



