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distributed by the Patent Office, which have very frequently abounded with these weevils, often to the alarm of the persons who have received them, who have been fearful a new insect enemy was being scattered over our land hereby."

LIB

UNIVERSITY OF

CALIFORNIA.

PREVENTIVES AND REMEDIES.

MANY and various have been the means resorted to for protecting the cornfield against the innumerable hosts of its insect foes. Some of these have proved quite successful, and others sufficiently so to encourage further efforts in the same direction. It is by no means impossible that continued investigations may yet teach us how to exclude from the maize crop the most dangerous of its enemies.

Steeping the seed corn before planting, as recommended in the case of birds, though not an absolute protection against insects, has a salutary tendency in two ways. It is said to repel the wire-worm which usually attacks the germinating seed, and by quickening the growth of the plant, places it sooner beyond danger from the attacks of other enemies.

Ploughing up sward-land in the fall is attended with advantage, by throwing out many insects from their hidden recesses in the soil, and exposing them to be devoured by birds, or destroyed by the frosts of winter.

A protection against the cut-worm, sometimes

found successful, is to sprinkle a small quantity of finecut tobacco on the surface of the ground, closely around the plants.

The following expedient is recommended in the Farmers' Encyclopædia: "A pair of old wheels are to be fitted with projections like the cogs of a spurwheel in a mill, which must be so formed as to make holes in the earth four inches deep during the turning of the wheel. The smooth track which the wheels make on the soft ground, induces the worm, in its nocturnal wanderings, to follow on till it tumbles into the pit. It cannot climb out, and is destroyed by the hot sun."

A good practice to prevent the propagation of this insect is to make bonfires in summer evenings when the moth begins to appear. Multitudes of these will swarm into the fire and be destroyed.

For the wire-worm, the following preventive is recommended by the American Institute Farmer's Club: Take of plaster and wood ashes equal parts, saturate the same with night soil from the privy vault, haul to the field in barrels, and drop half a pint in the bottom of each hill.

An expedient practised in England and recommended here, for destroying the wire-worm, consists in burying slices of potato sufficiently near the planted grain to attract the worm from it. These slices are to be examined daily, and the larvæ thus collected to be destroyed.

It is said that sowing a crop of white mustard seed will effectually extirpate the wire-worm from

the soil. Mr. Tallant reports to the British Farmers' Magazine, that he has freed his fields entirely from wire-worms by this means.

The chinch bug is only to be headed off by active and vigorous measures. The following plan is reported to the Prairie Farmer, by H. B. Norton, of Ogle County, Ill.: "If any Western rustics are verdant enough to suppose that chinch bugs cannot be outflanked, headed off, and conquered, they are entirely behind the times. The thing has been effectually done during the past season, by Mr. Davis, supervisor of the town of Scott, Ogle County, Ill. This gentleman had a cornfield of a hundred acres, growing alongside of extensive fields of small grain. The bugs had finished up the latter and were preparing to attack the former, when the owner, being of an ingenious turn, hit upon a happy plan for circumventing them. He surrounded the corn with a barrier of pine boards, set up edgewise and partly buried in the ground, to keep them in position. Outside of this fence deep holes were dug about ten feet apart. The upper edge of the board was kept constantly moist with a coat of coal tar, which was renewed every day.

"The bugs, according to their regular tactics, advanced to the assault in solid columns, swarming by millions and hiding the ground. They easily ascended the board, but were unable to cross the belt of coal tar. Sometimes they crowded upon one another, so as to bridge over the barrier, but such places were immediately covered with a new coating. The suc

cess of the defence was complete. The invaders crept backward and forward until they tumbled into the deep holes aforesaid. These were soon filled, and the swarming myriads were shovelled out of them literally by wagon loads at the rate of thirty or forty bushels a day—and buried up in other holes dug for the purpose as required. This may seem incredible to persons unacquainted with this little pest, but no one who has seen the countless myriads which cover the earth as harvest approaches will feel inclined to dispute the statement. It is an unimpeachable fact. The process was repeated, till only three or four bushels could be shovelled out of the holes, when it was abandoned. The corn was completely protected, and yielded bountifully."

Broadcast applications to the land, as a means of protection against insects in general, have been frequently tried, and various substances have been employed for the purpose, in some cases with very considerable success. But the results of all such trials are necessarily affected by a variety of circumstances. Some of the articles most employed and commended are unleached ashes, lime, soot, nitrate of soda, common salt, etc. Many farmers have found advantage, as mentioned by Mr. Colman, in his third report, by mixing salt with their stable-manure before applying the latter to the land.

For the weevil and the Angoumois moth the best, and perhaps the only reliable remedy, is, as stated by Dr. Fitch, to subject the infested grain to the heat of an oven, or of a very hot room. The grain, he says,

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