— 
by cheapness and ease of application. 
in stating that not a single wire-worm could be 
found the following year, and the crop of wheat 
throughout which was reaped last harvest was 
superior to any I had grown for twenty-one 
years. Iam therefore under a strong persuasion 
that the wire-worm may be successfully repelled 
and eradicated by carefully destroying all weeds 
and roots, and drilling white mustard-seed, and 
keeping the ground clean by hoeing.” 
Another good remedy for wire-worm would be 
the application to the soil, in the way of sprink- 
ling, top-dressing, or intermixture with manure, 
of some substance which, without injuring the 
plants or deteriorating the land, will kill the 
larve. More carefully conducted experiments, 
and on a more extensive scale than any that 
have yet been undertaken, will be necessary to 
show what kind of substance is best adapted for 
this purpose. Probably different substances will 
be found most useful in different situations, ac- 
cording to the nature of the soil and the chemi- 
cal ingredients which enter its composition. The 
latter consideration should be particularly at- 
tended to in all experiments on the subject, as 
most likely to suggest the most appropriate re- 
medy ; and it might even happen that the sub- 
stance employed to destroy the insects might 
be so managed as to produce a most beneficial 
change in the chemical qualities of the soil. If 
a strong saline solution, for example, should be 
found to kill the insects, as it is very likely to 
do, there are few soils which would not derive 
benefit from it, Of course many substances 
prove speedily fatal to wire-worms, and among 
these the choice would have to be determined 
Beirkan- 
der, a Swedish observer, who has investigated 
the habits of wire-worms, found that they live 
9 days among garlic, 14 hours among spruce 
leaves, 12 hours among fir leaves, 9 hours among 
Ledum palustre, and 2 hours among Myrica gale ; 
and he suggests that such of these plants as 
prove most speedily fatal should be mixed with 
the manure. Several liquid applications have 
been tried with more or less success in gardens, 
—principally, however, in flower-gardens, and 
under circumstances widely dissimilar from all 
field cultivation; and the chief of these are spi- 
rit of tar, chloride of lime water, and some 
strong saline solutions. Lord Albemarle recom- 
mends that when a field intended for wheat is 
infested with wire-worms, rape-cake should be 
used as a manure, to be pulverised and sown 
across the field; and if this do not destroy the 
insects, it at least saves the crop from their 
attacks. Mr. Burgess, writing in the second 
volume of the Royal Agricultural Society’s Jour- 
nal, says, “This year I applied the nitrate of 
soda to my wheat, when, from the wet season 
and the wire-worm, the plant was nearly de- 
stroyed, and I found it particularly beneficial, 
the wire-worm either being’ killed by the appli- 
WIRE-WORM. 
153 
I think I have above an average crop of wheat.” 
The ammonia which invigorated the plants at 
the same time destroyed the insects; and it is 
added that the turnips grew so fast that they 
soon got out of the way of the fly, Altica ne- 
morum. It is also positively affirmed that if 
lime and soot be applied to the soil before sow- 
ing any grain, it will kill the wire-worms. Com- 
mon salt likewise, on light sandy soils, is highly 
efficacious in destroying them; and of its effects 
upon these animals it is in the power of every 
one to convince himself, and also of the strength 
required for their destruction, by dissolving a 
tea-spoonful or more of salt in a tea-cupful of 
water, with some wire-worms in another, half 
full of pure water, when, by gradually adding 
the salt water, the exact effect produced upon 
the life of the animals will be ascertained ; and 
the same of course may be done with spirit of 
tar, or with any other liquid application. Wire- 
worms die in five minutes in alcohol, and almost 
instantaneously in oil of turpentine. 
An excellent remedy for wire-worm in the plots 
and borders of the flower garden, is to lay slices of 
potato, turnip, carrot, beet-root, parsnip, apple, 
cabbage, or broccoli, as baits, on or near the sur- 
face of the soil, or to plunge potatoes, carrots, 
beet-roots, or parsnips, at intervals, and periodi- 
cally take them up, hand-pick them, and replunge 
them. The Editor of the Gardener’s Gazette, 
speaking of beds of pinks and carnations, says, 
‘““We have completely eradicated every worm | 
from two or three beds very much infested, by 
plunging full-grown carrots, about 6 inches apart, 
and drawing them every morning. At first we 
found three or four worms at every carrot, and 
even during that period they attacked nothing 
else. After three or four weeks we could find 
none. We, however, do not think the garden 
generally was infested, but that the ten or fifteen 
loads of compost brought in for the beds, or some | 
portion of it, may have been full of them. We | 
had also, once a serious falling off in a tulip bed, 
and suspected wire-worm; adopting the same 
remedy, that is, plunging a few carrots, we took 
out enough to have destroyed the whole bed had 
they been neglected. Whether difference of soil 
or situation, or the presence of other matter, 
would make a difference, we know not; but we 
believe this little pest to prefer a carrot to any- 
thing, and, as they can work their way a third 
of their length into the root in a comparatively 
short time, when the root is drawn, they come 
out with it, for they cannot extricate them- 
selves. There is nothing required but to pull 
them out and destroy them, and replace the car- 
rots in the hole.” 
One of the best remedies in the field is hand- 
picking. Bierkander, after all his experiments, 
appears to have depended most upon this; for he 
says, “In a field where rye was intended to be 
sown, I last autumn (1778) employed a child to 
cation or forsaking the roots; and consequently | follow the plough and pick up the worms; by 
3B 
levis 
