Report  on  Wireworm. 
109 
can  do  in  the  way  of  injury  per  acre  ; and  it  should  be  remem- 
bered that  when  it  has  injured  one  crop  its  work  is  by  no 
means  done.  It  lives  on  for  many  years — for  five  years  as  far  as 
we  know — feeding  the  whole  time  (excepting  when  it  may  go 
down  deep  for  shelter  in  winter)  on  almost  any  crops,  or  failing 
them,  on  grass  roots,  or  what  it  can  find. 
Some  parts  of  the  country,  as  the  Orkneys,  and  parts  of  the 
Scottish  seaboard  and  islands,  appear  to  be  little  troubled  with 
it ; but  it  is  widely  spread,  and  one  of  our  pests  which  is  never 
totally  absent  ; and  looking  at  the  acreage  under  crops  which  it 
particularly  attacks  (as  wheat,  barley,  and  oats,  also  hops, 
swedes,  turnips,  mangolds  and  potatoes),  amounting,  as  stated  in 
the  Government  Agricultural  Returns  for  1882,  to  8,406,709 
acres  in  England  only,  each  farmer  can  see  for  himself  the  vast 
cost  of  entertaining  such  a guest.  The  following  communica- 
tions show  methods  by  which  its  presence  may  be  much 
diminished,  and  injury  from  its  ravages  lessened,  even  if  it 
cannot  be  wholly  got  rid  of. 
Presence  of  Wireworms  after  certain  Crops. 
Presence  of  wireworm  after  certain  crops,  such  as  grass, 
clover,  »Scc.  ; also  after  crops  which,  by  reason  of  the  amount  of 
stalks  or  stumps  remaining  from  them  in  the  ground,  give 
thereby  shelter  to  the  wireworms,  or  cause  the  soil  to  be  open 
and  unconsolidated. 
“ My  experience  of  wireworm  in  excess  was  on  land  reclaimed  by  the  spade 
from  old  turf,  covered  with  furze,  ferns,  and  such  like,  inhabited  by  birds  of 
various  kinds,  devouring  beetles,  worms,  &c.  The  land  was  sown  to  oats, 
which  were  devoured  by  wireworm,  the  wild  birds  having  been  scared  by  the 
continued  presence  of  workmen ; the  roller,  sheep-treading,  and  any  means 
-available  to  compress  the  land  were  used  ; the  turnip-crop  in  succession  was 
destroyed.  Pressure  was  again  applied,  and  the  land  left  without  crop.  .In 
the  spring  and  summer  birds  fed  in  great  numbers  on  the  land.  A crop  of 
mustard  was  sown  and  fed  off  by  sheep,  then  oats  and  seeds  for  two  years, 
and  no  more  trouble  with  wireworms. 
“ J.  Forrester, 
“ For  Eight  Hon.  Viscount  Portman,  Bryanston,  Blandford." 
“ We  generally  get  wireworm  in  land  which  has  been  laid  down  to  grass 
two  or  three  years,  or  after  a crop  of  sainfoin  which  has  been  down  some 
time.  On  light  land  in  this  hill  district  (on  the  chalk  formation)  old  leys 
.are  often  broken  up  and  sown  with  oats,  which  rarely  suffer  from  wireworm, 
but  the  following  year  we  generally  find  them,  and  in  each  succeeding  year 
they  are  often  very  troublesome. 
“ In  1873  a piece  of  sainfoin  which  had  been  in  existence  for  ten  years 
was  broken  up  and  sown  to  oats,  in  which  no  wireworm  appeared.  The  next 
autumn  vetches  were  sown  after  the  oats,  and  produced  a good  crop.  These 
were  fed  off  in  1874  by  sheep,  and  the  land  was  sown  to  rape ; this  was 
entirely  destroyed  by  wireworms.  Then  it  was  sown  to  mustard,  which  was 
