198 
Observations on the various Insects 
This was upon dry gravelly hills which had been a clover laj'er, 
and the valleys and better parts of the field did not suffer, but 
barley on strong land in the same parish drilled in the spring did 
not produce above one-third of a crop owing to the attacks of the 
Wireworms. Some low wet common land was broken up, pared 
and burnt (which with the draining cost 10/. per acre) ; it first 
produced a good crop of turnips, and afterwards a prodigious 
crop of oats ; but another portion under a different owner was 
pared but not burnt, and the crop was lost. 
Mr. Bates says that the following is the order in which the 
crops probably are affected in degree in his part of Suffolk, viz. 
wheat, turnips, barley, oats, and beet, and that they are generally 
least injured on good soils. If wheat be sown in dry weather it 
has proved favourable to the inroads of the Wireworm. Oat 
stubble ploughed several weeks previously, and sown with wheat 
the third week in November, suffered from their attacks. Barley 
and oats were injured in May, in a cold wet season. Turnips 
have been swept off after being up a fortnight, but generally they 
fall a sacrifice when three or four weeks old, having at that time 
four or six leaves ; yet he finds the eating through of the tap-root 
after the second hoeing does little mischief to the turnip-plant. 
That all lands exposed to the sun by being fed off short, as clover 
layers, are greatly infested with the Wireworms, but that no potato- 
crop is destroyed by them. 
From these statements it is evident that in some parts of Suffolk 
the potato-crops escape the attacks of the Wireworm, although 
that animal is abundant in the soil. It seems to be the same in 
Yorkshire, for Mr. Milburn * was so convinced of the potato 
being exempted from the ravages of the Wireworms, that he even 
recommended it as a good crop to plant in order to starve them 
out and clear the land of that pest : he says, Nobody ever heard 
of a potato-crop being injured by them;" and, alluding to Sir 
Joseph Banks's mode of ridding gardens of Wireworms by stick- 
ing slices of potato in the ground, he adds, " It is really surprising 
how a person so truly above all visionary theory should be led to 
recommend such useless plans." | We must, however, be very 
careful in drawing positive conclusions, for there is unquestionable 
evidence of the potato-crops suffering severely from tlio depreda- 
tions of the Wireworm in Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, and the western 
counties. The valuable memoranda 1 have just given from the ex- 
perience of practical men will, it is to be hoped, induce others culti- 
vating land of a different nature to attend to this subject, and com- 
municate their observations to the Society or to myself, for it is for 
want of correct and an extensive variety of data that we are at a 
* Of Thorpfield, nearThirsk. 
t Journ. Yorksli. Agric. Soc, p. G5. 
