STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
537 
WIREW0RM8. PLANTS THAT REI>EL THEM. WHITE MUSTARD. 
of. It may he repeated two years, after which splendid crops of 
oats and potatoes may be obtained from the land. 
From the testimony w r e have respecting white mustard, this 
would appear to be a crop which effectually secures the succeed¬ 
ing crops of wheat or other grain against these insects. Mr. Tal¬ 
lent’s account of his experiments with this plant, read before the 
Northamptonshire Farming Society, and published in the Country 
Times newspaper, September, 1831, and copied from thence into 
several publications, is so interesting and satisfactory that I here 
repeat it: “ White mustard seed will protect the grain from the 
wireworm, and this fact I have demonstrated perfectly to my own 
conviction. I first tried the experiment on half an acre, in the 
centre of a fifty acre field of fallow, which was much subject to the 
wireworm. The mustard seed being gathered, tho whole field 
was fallowed for wheat, and the half acre that had been previously 
cropped with mustard seed was wholly exempt from the wire- 
worm; the remainder of tho field was much injured. Not only 
was the half acre thus preserved, but in the spring it was deci¬ 
dedly the most advanced part of the crop, and the prosperous 
appearance which it presented, caused me to repeat the experi¬ 
ment, by sowing three acres more of mustard seed in the worst 
part of a field of forty-five acres, also much infested with the wire- 
worm. The remainder of the field was sown with early peas, 
which, with the mustard seed, was cleared in the same week. 
The land was then plowed for wheat ; and I had the pleasure of 
noticing these three acres to be quite free from tho worm, and 
much superior in other respects to the other part of the field, 
which suffered greatly. Thus encouraged by these results, I 
sowed the next year a whole field of forty-two acres, which had 
never repaid me for nineteen years, in consequence of nearly 
every crop being destroyed by the wireworm; and I am warranted 
in stating that not a single wireworm could be fouud the follow- 
iug year, and the crop of wheat throughout, which was reaped 
last harvest, was superior to any I had grown for twenty-one 
years. I am, therefore, under a strong persuasion that the wire- 
worm may be successfully repelled and eradicated by carefully 
destroying all weeds and roots, and drilling white mustard seed, 
and keeping the ground clean by hoeing.” 
Mr. Loudon is of the opinion (Gardener’s Chronicle, vol. vii., p. 
675), that the wireworm cannot cat tho roots of the mustard, most 
