“ The subterranean habits of wireworms make it hard to exterminate them when they have once begun to attack a crop, and the most hopeful practice is, by rotation and by proper treatment of the land, to clear it of the insects before the seed be sown. Passing easily through the soil on account of their shape, wireworms travel from plant to plant and thus injure the roots of a large number in a short time. ”

“ These larvae pass a long life (two or three years) in the soil, feeding on the roots of plants, and they often cause much damage to farm crops of all kinds, but especially to cereals. A wireworm may be known by its broad, quadrate head and cylindrical or somewhat flattened body, all of whose segments are protected by a firm, chitinous cuticle. ”