200 
Observations on the various Insects 
a g:reat deal, however, must depend upon the soil and situation, 
which will often explain the reason of an experiment succeeding 
in one place and failing in another. Mr. Salisbury gives some 
good advice concerning the Wireworrn.* " It is an insect, ' he 
says, " much complained of by farmers whenever they turn up 
land that has been cultivated with clover or grass, and it in general 
does great injury to the corn-crop which succeeds. It should be 
noticed that clover, or other plants of such description, give pro- 
tection to this insect ; it is bred in the roots of these plants, and 
the land is so well stocked with it that it attacks the corn and 
other succeeding crops very much to their injury. Land of this 
description is therefore unfit for corn immediately on breaking up. 
Turnips or potatoes are not so liable to injury from this insect ; 
but the best preventive is probably a summer fallow, and burning 
the rubbish on the land before cropping, by which means the eggs 
which are laid in the stalks are destroyed,! and the live worms 
die for want of nourishment ; soot and lime will also kill this de- 
structive worm. Before breaking up old lays it should always be 
a point with the farmer to examine the then existing crop, and 
observe if any of these insects are in the roots and stalks, and if so, 
to apply the above as a preventive previous to sowing a crop of 
grain in the land. Nothing but the preventing such a pest as 
this insect will justify the fallowing of land according to our im- 
proved system of agriculture ; in this case, however, it is indis- 
pensable. May not this insect, which is now (1816) more pre- 
valent among our crops of grain than ever, owe its prevalence to 
the system of fallowing and burning the refuse of such crops 
being nearly exploded ? " Fallows must, however, be kept very 
clean, for if couch and other grasses l;e allowed to exist in the 
land, the Wireworms will find the roots very acceptable, and 
sufficient to maintain them until the corn-croj) appears ; nothing 
can therefore be worse than to leave strips or spaces of grass or 
stubble in a ploughed field. 
All waste and wood lands are harbours for the Wireworms, and 
therefore when they are brought into cultivation the change is so 
congenial to their habits that they seem to increase at a prodigious 
rate, and consequently the second crop is IVequeiitly carried off 
by thciii. If laud be; jilantcd or sown two years in succession 
with the same crop, it is sure to be well stocked with them, at 
least so it is with the potato. When old pastures are broken up 
for a crop of corn, I have heard that a breast- plough should be 
used to take off not more than 2 inches of the tuif in the first 
instance, which will secure the crop from the attacks of the Wire- 
worm, whereas even the adtlition of only 2 inches more in the de])th 
* Hints to Proprietors of Orchards, p. 109. 
t No authority is givoii tor this statement. 
