Middletown transcript., 1896-04-25
GRAIN.
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TREATMENT FOR WIREWoRMs.

/ Preventives Tested and Advised at the Ex.
pertinent Stations and Elsewhere.
Professor Smith Of the New Jersey ex.
pertinent station has recommended, in
his reports and other writings, kainit
as a preventive Of wireworm injury.
We have his testimony that "where this
material is used before planting corn,
even on old sod, cutworms and WIRE
worms will do no injury 1t is proper
to state that the efficacy Of the above
preventives has not been sustained in
experiments made at the Cornell uni
versity experiment station, but in view
of the strong testimony above quoted
Country Gentleman asks, sis it not pos
sible that when tested in the field differ
ent results would be obtained from those
given in the cages in the insectary?"
Different soil conditions might also
yield quito different results.
The last Cornell bulletin recommends
the destruction Of the matured insect
the beetle-by attracting to a paris
green poisoned clover bait; frequent and
thorough plowing and pulverization of
infested fields for three or four weeks
following July 90, for breaking up the
earthen cells in which the pupa is con-
tanned at this time and thereby killing
it, after which wheat or rye may be
sown; short rotation Of crops, and not
keeping fields in sod for more than a
year or two at time, and thorough Gull
tivation in the fall.
Country Gentleman says that there is
strong testimony to the efficacy of crop
of buckwheat in preventing injury by
wireworms, and quotes Hon. A. B.
Dickinson as saying: "After expert
menting with salt and lime, and many
other things recommended, have found
only one remedy for the rascals, and
that is to break the sod and SOW it to
buckwheat. Plow late and as often as
possible in the fall, and then SOW it to
peas in the spring. With like plowing
the next fall, they will not injure any
crop the following season. -
In England crop of mustard is be-
lieved by many to be an absolute specific
against wireworms. A farmer stated
at an agricultural meeting: "I sowed
with mustard field Of AZ acres, which
had never repaid me for 10 years in |
consequence Of nearly every crop having
been destroyed by the wireworm. Not
single wireworm could be found the
following year, and the crop of wheat |
throughout was superior to any that ! |
have grown for 81 years.
Many farmers have asserted that wet |
either destroys wireworms, drives them
deeper into the soil beyond the roots
or renders the soil so obnoxious that the
worms leave.
On this subject one of the Cornell
professors writes as follows in Rural
New Yorker: From a long series of
made in 1890 and 1891 at
the Cornell iDsectary We found that to
kill wireworlns alt must be used at the
rate Of about eight tens to the acre, or
over per cent Of the soil to depth Of
four inches must be salt. This amount
would, of course, kill all vegetation. In
1891 wo thoroughly tested the supposed
effect OF xaN in driving the wireworms
deeper into ofho soil Our results indi-
Gated that 1000 pounds of salt per acre
nterfered with the termination of
wheat, and neither drove the wireworms
leepor into tho soil nor caused them to
migrate to any appreciable distance.