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Mr. D. C. Moore —Prairie Farmer, Vol. 6, (1860) page 52, gives his 
experience on this point as follows: 
“One year ago last May I planted 4J acres of corn on good ground m 
the usual way (dry seed). The Black-birds, Wire-worms, and some 
unknown thing which would dig the hill all up in the night, took at 
least one-third of the corn. I replanted and it shared the same fate. 
I planted a third time with no better luck. Last spring I saw in the 
Prairie Farmer an article on soaking seed corn in tar water. I put a 
teacup full of tar to half a bushel of corn, put in water milk-warm, 
stirred it until it formed a good coat on each kernel, rolled it in ashes 
and planted on the same ground I had planted the year before, and 
now there are not twenty stalks missing in a field of 4J acres. The 
birds were more numerous than last spring.” 
While this experiment is valuable in some respects it is not entire¬ 
ly satisfactory, for the worms may by this time have passed into the 
crvsalis or perfect state and hence would not have injured corn planted 
in the ordinary way. To be satisfactory it must protect the corn 
when the worms are known to be present in injurious numbers. 
The following by S. D. Jones, Farmer City, Illinois, will be found 
in the Prairie Farmer March 4, 1876: 
“Last spring I planted a field of corn which was the second crop after 
breaking an old meadow. The Wire-worms attacked the corn before 
it came up and made clean work of it, in places, all over the field ; 
some places for nearly an acre the corn was entirely destroyed by them, 
while in others in the same field the corn came up and looked well. 
We went to work with our hoes and replanted the vacant places. 
The ground being warm and in fine condition I supposed the corn 
would be up in a very few days, but to my sad disappointment there 
was not one hill in fifty that came at all. When I examined for the 
cause, I found from four to six Wire-worms in each hill, which had 
entirely destroyed the germ and heart of the grain before the plant 
got through the ground. I thought I would not give it up yet, though 
it was getting late in the season, so I procured some early corn called 
‘Kankakee yellow,’ and put it to soak in copperas water in the eve¬ 
ning, and let it soak till morning. I then poured the water off and 
went to replanting the same ground again. Nearly every hill came 
up in a few days, grew finely and made good, sound corn. I am fully 
convinced that seed corn soaked as above directed, will prevent Wire- 
worms and many other insects troubling it. The only difficulty is it 
may be some trouble to plant with a corn planter while damp. 
“In the spring of 1874 a neighbor of mine saturated his seed corn 
with kerosene oil. 
“My experience is also that fall plowing is a great preventive both 
of the Grub and also of the Wire-worm. 
“In the fall of 1874 I commenced to plow a stubble field of twelve 
acres, I had it about half broke when winter set in, consequently the 
other half was not plowed till spring. The part broken in the spring 
was at least one-fourth destroyed by the Wire and Grub-worms while 
the other part was scarcely touched.” 
Having recently received from Mr. D. T. Milligan, of Shelby coun¬ 
ty, specimens of Wire-worms working on the grains of planted corn, 
