12 
In a letter to Prof. French, written in July, 1830, and published 
in both the ninth and tenth reports of this office, Dr. E. L. Board- 
man, of Elmira, Stark county, Ill., describes the injury done by this 
worm to corn in his vicinity. The occurrence of the same pest in' 
LaSalle county is shown by a communication from Marseilles, in 
the Prairie Farmer for September 7, 1880, the writer of which says: 
“We had as fine a stand as I- ever saw, and we expected a good 
crop, but our corn seemed to stand still after about one foot high. 
I examined mine, as I had some trouble the past two years. The 
pest has been known here several years, damaging some fields as 
much as seven or eight years ago. The worm is white in the young 
state, about the size and looks of a cheese maggot.” 
Injuries to the corn in Stark county were reported by Dr. Board- 
man as scarcely less serious in 188i than those described during 
the previous year. In August, 18S2, I paid a visit to that county 
myself, for the purpose of examining the injuries done by the worms, 
and found them not at all inferior to those of former years. In 
several cases the owners of the fields estimated the probable loss- 
at from twenty-five to seventy-five per cent, of the crop. In every case 
examined, the seriously affected fields were those which had been in 
corn for one or more years previously, and the degree of injury 
almost always corresponded closely to the number of successive 
years the ground had been in corn. A letter from Dr. Boardman, 
received in November, after the corn was chiefly harvested, estima¬ 
ted the loss in his vicinity due to the corn root-worm at from 
twenty to sixty per cent., with an average of thirty per cent. 
During this same month of August, my assistant, Mr. F. M. Web¬ 
ster, went to DeKalb county, for the purpose of studying the com 
root-worm and other insects, and found this species not less 
abundant and injurious than I had found it farther west. The 
presence of the white grub in many of the fields infested by the 
root-worm, made it difficult to estimate exactly the amount of the 
injury due to the latter. A careful comparison of some fields in. 
which sometimes one and sometimes the other was at work, showed 
that the damage due to the white grub was, on an average, about 
one-fourtli that done by the root-worm. 
To show the condition of things found in this region the following 
abstracts of his notes are given: In one field, which had been in 
com four or five years, fifty per cent, was destroyed. Another, 
planted to corn for three years previously, was badly damaged. In 
still another, which had been in corn but one year preceding, only 
a few of the beetles were found, and none of the worms. On Mr. 
Griswold’s farm, one field had been in corn three years, and another 
but two, both having been otherwise treated alike. The crop was; 
badly injured in the first, and but slightly so in the second. Where, 
of adjoining fields, separated not even by a fence, one had been 
previously planted to com, and the^ other had been in some other 
crop the preceding year; the dividing line between the two was j 
clearly indicated by the difference in the thriftiness of the corn. In 
a field of Mr. Taylor’s which had been planted to corn for three i! 
years previously, about a fourth of the crop was destroyed. 
The work of the worm at Sandwich, in the same county, is suffi¬ 
ciently indicated in the following letter from Mr. Jas. Griswold, who I 
