STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
541 
WIREWORMS. REMEDIES. MANURES. GUANO. BIRDS. 
The wire worms are said to be more fond of this than of any other 
food and will not trouble any crop of plants if they are supplied 
with it. J. H. Churnock, of Lennoxville, Canada East, gave a 
very interesting communication in the Country Gentlemen and 
Cultivator (1865, p. 77), in relation to this substance. He directs 
to break the rape cake into small lumps about a half inch thick 
and spread them over the ground, to the amount of three hundred 
weight per acre, and plow them in before sowing. These lumps 
he says will be found afterwards to be filled with worms in all 
stages from repletion to death and decay. And besides being 
such a perfect vermifuge it is a powerful fertilizer. If the worms 
are so fond of this substance as is stated, it is entitled to more 
general attention than it is receiving. 
The benefits of highly manuring and promoting a rapid, vigor¬ 
ous growth of the crop are admitted on all hands. Manure, it is 
stated in the Cultivator (1859, page 107,) is well known as one ot 
the best remedies for the wireworm. Some farmers adopt the 
following mode of applying it. The land for spring crops is 
plowed very late in autumn, the later the better, so that the cold 
may effectually chill them ; and during winter manure is applied 
to the land, with three or four bushels of salt, and if practicable, 
twenty or thirty bushels of ashes. The two latter may be applied 
early in spring, and if the manure is made into compost with turf, 
loam, and sand the previous autumn, with the salt and ashes 
added at that time, and the compost applied early the following 
spring, it will succeed well. 
Hog manure is stated by D. Thomson, of Adams Basin, N. Y., 
to be an entire preventive of the wireworms from injuring the 
crops. Ho reports in the Rural New Yorker (vol. vi, p. 133,) 
that the part of a field in which hog manure was scattered and 
plowed in, yielded a good crop, when that of the unmanured part 
of the same field was destroyed. And dropped in the hill in cer¬ 
tain rows, these rows were unaffected, when the adjoining un¬ 
manured rows were entirely cut off. 
Guano, it is stated iu the same periodical (1862, page 29,) ap¬ 
plied to the crop when it is planted, is the best preventive of their 
attack. It is found to be very offensive to the worms, and either 
destroys them or drives them away. 
It remains for us, in conclusion, to mention the birds as being 
our best friends to assist us in destroying the wireworms. Tko 
