536 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
WIBEWORMS. PLANTS THAT RETEL THEM. WOAD. 
Pennanc Gorau, in November 1838, saved an acre and a half of 
turnips sown to replace 'wheat destroyed by the wireworm, and 
attacked by hosts ot these larvaj, by setting boys to collect them, 
who, at the rate of 1> pence per 100, gathered 18,000; as many 
as titty worms having been taken from one turnip. Thus, at the 
expense of only XI, 2s. 6d., an acre and a half of turnips, worth 
X5 to X7 or more, was saved; while, as the boys could each col¬ 
lect GOO per day, thirty days’ employment was given to them at 
9d per day, which they would not otherwise have had. Mr. Cur¬ 
tis states that Mr. Eley of Hounslow, gave him the following 
statements regarding three acres of drilled wheat infested by wire- 
worms, and which were hand-picked by women iu March, 184G. 
The dead plants were dug up with square-pointed knives, and the 
wireworms picked from the roots into small jugs; at the end of 
every two rows they were emptied into a large jar, from which 
escape was impossible. The total quantity taken and destroyed 
in this manner, from the three acres alone, was more than 60,000; 
the expense of collecting them was trifling, being not more than 
10d pei 1,000, at which price the women could earn good w r ages. 
The ground jvas gone over two or three times, and the worms 
were counted every night. And in June, 1845, he had five acres 
of Swedish turnips very much affected by these wireworms. A 
woman was set to dig the plants that were dead or dying, and to 
pick up the worms; she was seventeen days at one shilling per 
day, and collected 41,600 worms. It is added that the wireworms 
are much easier caught from the turnips than from the wheat; as 
many as twenty-five in several instances have been found attack¬ 
ing a single turnip. 
It is supposed there are some particular kinds of vegetation 
which are distasteful and repulsive to the wireworms, and on 
which they are unable to feed and sustain themselves, and conse¬ 
quently if a crop of this kind be grown the -worms will all vanish, 
perishing from hunger or escaping into the adjoining fields, and 
hereby the ground can be prepared for succeeding crops which 
will be uninjured. 
In Europe, woad, a plant heretofore in extensive use by dyers for 
coloring purposes, has attracted much notice, as being of this kind. 
Respecting it, Mr. Curtis says, I learn from Hr. Roy, that, on 
breaking up damp meadow and pasture land in Lincolnshire, if it 
be sown with woad instead of corn, tho wireworm will be got rid 
