6 
eaten down as closely as possible, to break up tbe 
ground early in autumn, and to collect and burn all 
grass, weeds, and roots which might give shelter or 
food to eggs or wireworm. To thoroughly cultivate 
the land by ploughing, grubbing, or otherwise, working 
well into it lime (especially in a hot state) or lime and 
salt, or gas lime, or other applications unfavourable to 
insect life. Also such manure and fertilizers should be 
applied on the land, or drilled with the seed, as will put 
the crop in good heart. Heavy rolling to compress the 
soil about the young plants is another important item. 
Amongst these operations the point of getting rid of 
the root rubbish acts in more ways than appears at the 
first glance. As a matter of course everything alive 
or dead that can give shelter or food to the wireworm 
should be destroyed, and collecting and burning it is 
the most convenient method, but the burning should 
follow as promptly as possible on the collecting, or 
else the wireworms which were in the heaps, feeling 
themselves ill at ease in the unnatural locality, will 
have gone down into the ground out of reach of injury. 
If the wireworms are in the fired heaps they cannot fail 
to be destroyed, but a very slight coating of earth 
between a grub and a fire above it serves for a much 
greater protection than is commonly supposed. Two 
inches of earth has been found enough to save a chafer 
grub from being injured by a strong fire raised above 
it, and the much more active wireworm is able to pass 
readily from an uncomfortable locality. 
This power of the wireworm to withdraw itself gently 
and slowly, but very effectually, out of reach of per¬ 
secution, is one of the points which we are perpetually, 
and in many kinds of ways, endeavouring to act upon 
in the greater part of the farm operations which we use 
for prevention or remedy of its ravages. If you look 
at this diagram of the creature, or, still better, if you 
will examine a specimen in your own hands, you will 
see how perfectly it is calculated to glide through the 
ground. The flattened or wedge-shaped head is just 
what is needed to pierce the way forward: the long 
narrow body, with its hard surface of almost glassy 
smoothness, offers little resistance in its passage through 
the ground; whilst the sucker-foot beneath the tail 
segment, together with the tip of the tail, helps it to 
gain good leverage for its operations. When it is 
annoyed it uses its power to remove elsewhere, some¬ 
times to our benefit, for we may thus get rid of it by 
putting obnoxious dressings on the land : but sometimes 
much to our inconvenience, for on disturbance, or in 
frost, or when it is about to turn (when its long life in 
the larval state is done) to the chrysalis stage, it will 
leave the surface for a while, and when we have gone 
to much expense in, as we think, clearing the ground 
that all the time it is not in, the creature will come up 
again either just as destructive as ever, or in its beetle 
stage to lay eggs and begin a new attack. 
In this power of movement, or of travelling, as it is 
termed, of the wireworm, we have the obvious reason 
why all measures to compress or firm the ground are of 
