STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
519 
WIREWORMS. IMPORTANT PESTS. EXTENSIVE DEPREDATORS. 
Wireworms, Cratonychus communis, Gyllenhal, and other Elaters. (Cole- 
optera. Blateridse.) 
The roots of the turnip, potato, and numerous other garden plants and field crops, 
eaten, and the orops frequently destroyed by long, slender, tough, tarnished yellow 
worms, which finally change to slender, elliptical beetles, which, if placed on their backs, 
with a snap throw themselves upward to regain their foot. 
I propose in the following pages to present as full an account 
of the wireworms, their habits and economy, as my means of in¬ 
formation will enable me to prepare. Those who are sustaining 
most vexatious losses from these pests, are frequently, in our agri¬ 
cultural periodicals, calling for all the information that can be 
given. “We want a Wircworm Essay;” “Inform us, at least, of 
every remedy that has been tried;” such are the calls which are 
ever ancl anon being made. My own observations will enable me, 
I think, to present a more accurate and satisfactory account of our 
American wireworms than has before been given the public. The 
late Mr. Curtis made, probably, the ablest investigation of these 
insects which has ever been accomplished. We shall make free 
use of the valuable information embraced in his report, published 
first in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, and subse¬ 
quently in his volume entitled “ Farm Insects,” these wireworms 
forming the subjects of the sixth and seventh chapters of this 
volume. And on the subject of remedies, we shall glean much 
important information from several of the agricultural periodicals 
both foreign and domestic. 
Mr. Curtis well remarks, that of all the insect enemies with 
which the farmer, and he might also say the gardener, have to 
conteud, there are none which arc more fatal in their eflects and 
more difficult to overcome, than the wireworms. To destroy these 
pests and prevent their ravages, baffles the efforts of the most 
skillful and ingenious. Most of our inject enemies limit their 
depredations to a single species of plant, or, at least, to the plants 
of a particular group or natural order. Thus the attacks of the 
striped flea-beetle are confined to plauts of the order Cruciferas; 
those of the onion-fly, to the onion; the midgo and Hessian-fly, to 
wheat; the curculio, to the pomaceous and stone-fruits, &c. But 
the wireworms may almost be termed omnivorous. There is 
scarcely a product of the farm or the garden which is exempt from 
their ravages. They destroy, alike, the coarsest vegetables and 
the nicest flowers. , And being thus unlimited in their operations, 
the amount of mischief they do is almost incalculable. Says Mr. 
