Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Corn-chafer
CORN-CHAFER, or Curculio granarius, L. a species of insects bearing a resemblance to oblong, soft worms. They are provided anteriorly with six scaly legs, and their hind is likewise covered with scales. Some species of these larvae are dreaded for the mischief they do in granaries; as they find means to introduce themselves, while small, into grains of corn, and there fix their abode. It is very difficult to discover them, for they lie concealed within the grain, grow slowly, and enlarge their habitation, in proportion to their size, at the expence of the interior meal, on which they feed.
Corn-lofts are frequently laid waste by these numerous insects, which devour immense quantities of grain. When the corn-chafer, after having consumed all the meal, has attained its full size, it remains within the grain, hides itself under the empty husk, and subsists alone: there it undergoes its transformation, and becomes a chrysalis; nor does it leave the grain, till a perfect insect, when it makes its way through the husk.
One of our foreign correspondents has communicated to us the following recipe for extirpating these predatory vermin, or preventing their devastations in granaries: Take three or four handfuls of the purple loose-strife, or willow-herb, or grass-poly, Lythrum Salicaria, L.; six or eight handfuls of water-pepper, or biting snakeweed, Polygonum Hydropiper, L.; and two handfuls of narrow-leaved pepper-wort or dittander, Lepidium ruderale, L.—put them together in a capacious vessel filled with water, several inches above the herbs, and boil the whole from 15 to 30 minutes, by a moderate heat. After taking it from the fire, add four or six onions, a few cloves of garlick, and half a pound of Epsom salt. When cold, sprinkle the floor and walls of the granary with this decoction; and, if the former be constructed of clay, the sprinkling must be two or three times repeated. The herbs here employed, should not be gathered or decocted, till they are immediately wanted, as they would lose their efficacy by long keeping: hence, the months of June and July are the most proper season for collecting them. Lastly, the floor ought to be previously swept, and completely cleared of all impurities, so that the decoction may be applied as a preventive, in the months ot August and September.