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stroyed a large proportion of the annuals sown 
in it. Pansies, lobelias, and dahlias are much at- 
tacked by it; and all the fine kinds of dianthuses 
are peculiarly liable. “The wire-worms,” says 
Mr. Smith in the Florist’s Magazine, “ invariably 
attack the pink and the carnation at the bottom 
of the stem near the root, and make holes through 
it in every direction, while the only indication of 
their presence is the entire destruction of the 
plant. The larva is in general found in the 
loam ; therefore great care should be taken, in 
sweetening that soil, not to allow one to escape 
when it is turned over; and their colour being a 
light brown, makes the finding of them more dif- 
ficult.” 
As to the particular soils and seasons and cir- 
cumstances in which the wire-worms are most 
mischievous on farm-lands, the following impor- 
tant information is presented by Mr. Curtis :— 
“Mr. Porter of Covehithe, where the lands are 
for the most part light, says that the wire-worms 
do most mischief in March, April, May, and 
June; that wheat suffers the most among the 
corn-crops, and white turnips amongst the green 
crops, but that rye is sometimes swept off by 
acres; and with regard to barley, he has observed 
that when it is drilled-in 3 inches deep, the plant 
droops and turns yellow, as if attacked by the 
wire-worm, whereas at 14 inch deep it makes a 
vigorous plant. JI may observe with respect to 
this difference of result from the depth of sowing, 
that it is possible the wire-worm may not be 
able to exist near the surface in a light sandy 
soil, and consequently the barley escapes when 
drilled-in at the lesser depth. Turnips and beet- 
root he finds most affected at the end of June 
and the beginning of August; yet 12 acres of the 
latter, which produced a fine plant, were com- 
pletely taken off by the wire-worm the last week 
in May. Swedes were afterwards sown the second 
week in June, and to his surprise produced a 
fine crop. The success of the swedes must be at- 
tributed, J think, to the greater part of the wire- 
worms having arrived at maturity when they had 
destroyed the beet, in which case they would 
change to pups, and afterwards to beetles, in 
both which states they are harmless. Turnips 
do best at Covehithe if sown about the 21st June 
on the light lands, and a week earlier on heavy 
_ lands. On the lower part of fields bordering on 
marshes, where the land is springy and friable, 
barley, turnips, and beet have generally fallen a 
sacrifice; and such land is most subject to their 
attacks. When white-clover or suckling and rye- 
grass layers have been left for seed, it is scarcely 
possible to get a wheat-crop on account of the 
wire-worm ; the only chance is to break up the 
land and work it well about for a couple of 
months in the autumn. Potatoes never suffer on 
Mr. Porter’s farm from the wire-worm.—Mr. Ro 
binson, of Henstead, informs me that in his 
neighbourhood the gravelly and sandy soils are 
most infested, and the strong loam-and clay most 
s 
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WIRE-WORM. 
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751 
free from the wire-worms. That they inhabit 
every aspect was proved by their ravages over 
all parts of a field which was lowest in the centre. 
A dry season is most conducive to their increase ; 
yet if the following year be wet, it does not kill 
the wire-worms, but it probably destroys the 
elaters, and prevents the deposition of the eggs. 
Harly in March 1841, when his wheat was well 
out of the ground, and about 14 inch high, it be- 
gan to die off, and on pulling some up he found 
the wire-worm had eaten into the stalk and con- 
sumed the inside. This was upon dry gravelly 
hills which had been a clover layer, and the val- 
leys and better parts of the field did not suffer ; 
but barley on strong land in the same parish 
drilled in the spring, did not produce above one- 
third of a crop, owing to the attacks of the wire- 
worms. Some low wet common land was broken 
up, pared and burnt (which with the draining 
cost £10 per acre) ; it first produced a good crop 
of turnips, and afterwards a prodigious crop of 
oats ; but another portion under a different owner 
was pared but not burnt, and the crop was lost. 
—Mr. Bates says that the following is the order 
in which the crops probably are affected in de- 
gree in his part of Suffolk, viz., wheat, turnips, 
barley, oats, and beet, and that they are generally 
least injured on good soils. If wheat be sown in 
dry weather, it has proved favourable to the in- 
roads of the wire-worm. Oat stubble ploughed 
several weeks previously, and sown with wheat 
the third week in November, suffered from their 
attacks. Barley and oats were injured in May, 
in a cold wet season. Turnips have been swept 
off after being up a fortnight, but generally they 
fall a sacrifice when three or four weeks old, hav- 
ing at that time four or six leaves ; yet he finds the 
eating through of the tap-root after the second 
hoeing does little mischief to the turnip-plant. 
That all lands exposed to the sun by being fed 
off short, as clover layers, are greatly infested 
with the wire-worms, but that no potato-crop is 
destroyed by them.” 
Three of the most effectual preventives of the 
ravages of wire-worms are judicious fallowing, 
the judicious breaking up of leys and pastures, 
and the judicious surface treatment of ploughed 
lands. ‘May not this insect,” said a perspica- 
cious writer in 1816, “which is now more preva- 
lent among our crops than ever, owe its preva- 
lence to the system of fallowing and burning the 
refuse of such crops being nearly exploded?” A 
clean and careful summer fallow, in fact, when 
accompanied with such a thorough burning of 
rubbish as will surely destroy both the larvee and 
the eggs of the click-beetles, is a perfect remedy 
against wire-worms wherever they have been 
working devastation ; and if it occurred at regu- 
lar though even pretty remote intervals in a cycle 
of years, would always be a more or less powerful 
hindrance to their obtaining any lodgment. In 
every case, however, it must be truly clean and 
careful,—and in particular must completely clear 
