affecting the Turnips, Corn-crops, Sf-c. 
■203 
beina: no other roots in the soil for them to live on ; and no weeds 
or other plants than mustard being permitted to grow during the 
season, the insects necessarily die of famine." * 
Mowing oats, and of course other corn, is considered the best 
method of getting rid of the Wireworm by Kollar, and other con- 
tinental writers ; but they assign no reason, and it is difficult to 
explain the cause. It may be, that when corn is reaped, the 
stubble being left long, rooks and many other birds will not 
resort to such fields, and consequently the Wireworms revel 
without molestation. This is worth the consideration of the 
farmer ; and whatever may be the cause, if the statement be true, 
it ought not to be neglected. Long stubble certainly harbours 
many injurious insects, and amongst them, it is believed, the 
turnip-beetle, which resorts to the long hollow straws for shelter 
during the winter, f 
I will now give the experiments made by Bierkander ; and 
although their application to the crops may not be so beneficial 
as one could desire, yet they may be useful in directing the culti- 
vator in the pursuit of this subject. " I have," says this learned 
Swede, made many experiments to discover by what means the 
Wireworms may be destroyed. Many were put at one time into 
tea-cups filled with the following vegetables, viz. : — 
Days. Hours. 
" Garlic .... amongst which they lived 9 0 
The leaves of the spruce fir . . ditto ... 0 14 
The leaves of the fir .... ditto ... 0 10 
Ledum palustre (an Irish plant) ditto ... 0 9 
Myrica gate, sweet gale, or Dutch] ^ 
myrtk . ..... • . /'^'"^ ... 0 2 
In water they lived 4 0 
" In consequence of this it ought to be tried how useful it 
might be, in winter and summer, to mix in the heaps of manure 
fir-leaves. Ledum palustre, and Myrica gale, of which vegetables 
the dung would smell, which might probably be disagreeable to 
the vermin ; and if they did not die in consequence of it, they 
might perhaps quit the fields." 
It thus appears evident that any endeavour to destroy the Wire- 
worms by drowning them is almost impracticable ; for they not 
only exhibited signs of life in water for four days, but I think it 
probable that if a field were laid under water for a much longer 
period, it would not destroy them. This, however, might be 
easily tried in some situations ; and to ascertain the truth is worth 
the trouble. 
* Gardeners" Maj^aziiie, vol. vii. p. 675. 
t Royal Agric. Jouin., vol. ii. p. 204. 
% Trans. Acad, bcien. in Sweden, vol. for 1779, p. 286, and Commun, to 
Board of Agric, vol. iv. p. 414. 
