STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
533 
WIREWORMS. IN POTATOES, CABBAGES, TURNIPS, FLOWERS. 
viously been kept in grass. The ravages of these worms are 
sometimes so great that the farmer is compelled to immediately 
lay tko land down again to pasture, to very great disadvantage, it 
being evident that where the wireworms are so numerous, no grain 
crop can be profitably grown. 
Potatoes also suffer greatly, and it is observed that in some dis¬ 
tricts the crop is severely injured, whilst in others where the wire- 
worms are equally numerous upon the turnips, it escapes. Sliced 
potatoes are said to be far more liable to be injured than tubers 
which are planted whole. 
Wireworms are sometimes found in a closed cavity deep in the 
interior of ripened and stored potatoes. The walls of the cavity 
are of a dark brown color and of a loose, spongy and porous tex¬ 
ture. In these instances it is probable that the worm bored into 
the small young potato, -which continuing to grow, the track by 
which it entered became closed and wholly obliterated. It is the 
common wireworm of the garden, described on a preceding page, 
which I have met with in these cavities. 
Mr. Hope states (Trans. Entom. Soc., London, vol. iii, p. 154) 
that the hops in Kent and other counties of England, have been 
repeatedly injured by the wireworm. 
Cabbages are liable to be destroyed by them. When this crop 
is gathered in autumn, I have often noticed wireworms among the 
roots, sometimes with their bodies sunk half their length therein. 
The turnip appears to be the most infested by these worms of 
any root crop. They are present in it the whole year round, 
though it is to the young plants that they do the most serious 
injury. When suffering from the attack of this worm the plants 
have a sickly aspect, with the outer leaves yellow, aud on drawing 
them up out from the ground, the skin is discovered to be gnawed 
and one, two, three or more wireworms are invariably found 
upon or around it. They sever the young root, from half an inch 
to an inch below the base of the leaves, and often gnaw and con¬ 
sume it higher up. In Europe, where the turnip is a much more 
important crop than it is with us, the damage which is frequently 
caused by these wireworms is immense. 
The roots of pinks, carnations, picotees, aud several other culti¬ 
vated flowers are much preyed upon by these worms. They attack 
the pink and carnation at the bottom of the stem, near the root, 
