[295] Marsham in Communications to the Board of Agriculture, iv. 412. Plate xviii. fig. 4. and Linn. Trans. ix. 60.
[297] The wire-worm is particularly destructive for a few years in gardens recently converted from pasture ground. In the Botanic Garden at Hull thus circumstanced a great proportion of the annuals sown in 1813 were destroyed by it. A very simple and effectual remedy in such cases was mentioned to me by Sir Joseph Banks. He recommended that slices of potato stuck upon skewers should be buried near the seeds sown, examined every day, and the wire-worms which collect upon them in great numbers destroyed.
This plan of decoying destructive animals from our crops by offering them more tempting food, is excellent, and deserves to be pursued in other instances. It was very successfully employed in 1813 by J. M. Rodwell, Esq. of Barham Hall near Ipswich, one of the most skilful and best informed agriculturists in the county of Suffolk, to preserve some of his wheat-fields from the ravages of a small gray slug, which threatened to demolish the plant. Having heard that turnips had been used with success to entice the slugs from wheat, he caused a sufficient quantity to dress eight acres to be got together; and then, the tops being divided and the apples sliced, he directed the pieces to be laid separately, dressing two stetches with them and omitting two alternately, till the whole field of eight acres was gone over. On the following morning he employed two women to examine and free from the slugs, which they did into a measure, the tops and slices; and when cleared they were laid upon those stetches that had been omitted the day before. It was observed invariably, that in the stetches dressed with the turnips no slugs were to be found upon the wheat or crawling upon the land, though they abounded upon the turnips; while on the undressed stetches they were to be seen in great numbers both on the wheat and on the land. The quantity of slugs thus collected was near a bushel.—Mr. Rodwell is persuaded that by this plan he saved his wheat from essential injury.
[298] Reaum. v. 11.
[299] Two species are confounded under the appellation of the grub, the larvæ namely of Tipula oleracea and cornicina, which last is very injurious, though not equally with the first. In the rich district of Sunk Island in Holderness, in the spring of 1813, hundreds of acres of pasture have been entirely destroyed by them, being rendered as completely brown as if they had suffered a three months drought, and destitute of all vegetation except that of a few thistles. A square foot of the dead turf being dug up, 210 grubs were counted in it! and, what furnishes a striking proof of the prolific powers of these insects, the next year it was difficult to find a single one.
[300] Stickney's Observations on the Grub.
[301] De Geer, i. 487.
[302] I owe this information to the late Robinson Kittoe, Esq.
[303] Castle in Philos. Trans. xxx. 346.