4 
wliich has been fairly tried by a friend in Hants, who tells me 
it is the only method by which he can save his carnations and 
other flowers. I have now before me communications from 
several contributors to the ‘ Gardeners’ Chronicle,’ all concur- 
ring in recommending slices of potato, &c., as the best mode 
of freeing the garden at least from this troublesome visitor. 
One of these I will transcribe : ‘ I send you an account of des- 
troying the Wire worm, which I have adopted for some years, 
my ground being full of them, so that I could neither grow 
sweet-williams, picotees, bulbs, lettuces, nor indeed any succu- 
lent plant, without their boring, running up, and eating the 
hearts out. Near these plants I now place half a potato, with 
the eyes cut out to prevent its growing, and run a pointed stick 
through the middle of it, and peg it into the ground, covering 
it over with about an inch of mould ; and in a day or two I 
have pulled out by the tail from fifteen to twenty of them from 
one piece of potatoe.’” Slices of turnip, brocoli, cabbage, 
beet-root, parsnip, carrot, apples, and young lettuce-plants, 
will answer the purpose where potatoes are scarce or not to be 
obtained ; and it is very probable, if such vegetables were 
scattered over infested corn fields, that considerable numbers 
of the Wireworm would be decoyed to them, and might be col- 
lected and destroyed; for it is even recommended by some 
persons to lay the slices of potato on the surface, although there 
are others who consider that they may be buried two or three 
inches deep ; but these variations in the mode of application 
arise, in all probability, from differences in the soil.” 
“ Excellent as many of the foregoing remedies may be, 1 
must confess I think highly of hand-picking; its eflfects are 
certain, it is comparatively not expensive, especially when it is 
borne in mind that it gives employment to the children of the 
labourer. The following fact shows the advantages of this 
system, and requires no comment. 'A striking instance,’” 
says Mr. Spence, 'of the use of hand-picking ( in most cases 
by far the most effective mode of getting rid of insects) ap- 
peared in the 'West Briton,’ a provincial paper, in November, 
1838, stating that Mr. G. Pearce, of Pennare Goran, had saved 
an acre and a half of turnips, sown to replace wheat destroyed by 
the Wireworm and attacked by hosts of these larvae, by setting 
boys to collect them; who, at the rate of lid. per 100, gathered 
