80 
CORN AND GRASS. 
I 
begins the new crop for food, and thus it suffers more. With the 
second crop the land is generally properly cleaned ; the cleaner it is the 
more hollow and loose the land becomes, and the more the Wireworm 
attacks the crop, it being easy to get about, and nothing else to feed 
upon.—(T. R. Hulbert.) 
We have had no Wireworm attack except on one piece of 5 acres 
of Barley, which was almost entirely spoilt, rolling heavily being of 
no avail. This was old meadow land, but perhaps it is worth notice 
that about one acre of this field, which was burned about five years 
ago, was not nearly so bad as the other four acres. Fires were made 
about 11 yards apart, and all the rubbish, weeds, roots, &c., burned, 
and the ashes spread about the land.—(R. W. Christy, Boynton Hall, 
near Chelmsford.) 
Probably there is more Wireworm in Wheat after seeds than at any 
other time on the four-course system. 
The special management is to plough the seeds up soon enough to 
give the turf time to rot; by rollings to give a firm seed-bed, and by 
rolling after putting in the seed (where this is practicable) to compress 
the soil with a view to preventing the frost lifting the surface, and so 
injuring the young plant. The judicious use of fertilizers strengthens 
the plant, and generally enables it to resist alike the effects of frost and 
the ravages of the Wireworm. 
On land where, after seeds have been grazed for two or three years, 
the ground has been ploughed for Wheat in August (giving time for 
the turf to rot), and a firm seed-bed has been secured by plentiful roll¬ 
ing, also some fertilizer such as Guano or Superphosphate sown at the 
time that the seed is drilled, we shall not find any unusual amount of 
Wireworm. If, on the contrary, it is ploughed later in the season, and 
the land treated only as in the case of one-year-old Clover, the poverty 
of the surface will be shown by the large proportion of dead plants 
which have “ damped off,” whilst the remainder “ slow growing ” will 
show Wireworm active amongst them. 
In ordinary cases—cultivating the land immediately after harvest, 
burning all Grass and other roots carefully, and so destroying the eggs 
of the Beetle—repeated ploughing^, which enable the rooks to carry off 
a large percentage of the Wireworms, and a thorough pulverizing of 
the soil, which may expose them, appears to me to be the effectual way 
of dealing with the Wireworms, or larvae of the Click Beetle.—(Ralph 
Lowe, Sleaford, Lincolnshire.) 
Wireworm is especially destructive after two years’ seeds, more par¬ 
ticularly when the land is sown with corn immediately after ploughing, 
and so little worked that considerable, spaces are left between the 
unbroken furrows. Early ploughing Clover Ley in the autumn and ® 
rolling the Wheat or Oats in the spring has been very advantageous, 
