The Army- worm. 239 



equally as much as, and in some cases more than, corn or oats. 

 One army of the worms which we visited had stripped every leaf 

 from forty acres of rye and had cut off one-third of the heads 

 before the farmer discovered the presence of the enemy on his 

 farm. When we reached his place, his corn and oats in adjoining 

 fields were disappearing at the rate of an acre or two a day, and 

 the lane across which the worms were marching presented a 

 desolate appearance, scarcely a green blade of grass having 

 escaped the jaws of the hungry horde. Many farmers had sim- 

 ilar experiences with the insect. Often whole fields of rye or 

 other crops would be ruined before the culprits were discovered. 

 Some farmers, hoping to save their oat crop cut the grain before 

 it was fairly ripe, binding it into bundles and ' ' shocking it " as 

 usual ; but quarts of the worms simply gathered under and in 

 these shocks and continued their destructive work on the drying 

 grain, often ruining the whole crop. 



The favorite breeding places for the worms are the low places 

 in pastures and meadows where the vegetation grows the rankest, 

 and in many cases it was evident that the armies started from 

 such places in 1896. Ofren, however, the indications were that 

 the worms were born in the rye or oat field where their ravages 

 were first noticed. As there was nothing to indicate that 1896 

 was to be an " army-worm year, ' ' no one was on the lookout for 

 the insect, and doubtless few, if any, farmers discovered the worms 

 when they were small and before they had been forced to abandon 

 their breeding grounds and march to new pa.stures in search of 

 food to satisfy their voracious appetites. The larger proportion 

 of the damage done in 1896 might have been averted had the 

 farmers been able to apply remedial measures before the worms 

 had spread far from their birthplace instead of when they were 

 half-grown or more, with larger appetites, and were on the march. 



Although the outbreak of the insect was so general all over 

 the state, oftentimes the worms were confined to one or two farms 

 in a town ; one man's crops might be ruined by them while 

 another army of the worms might not occur within a radius of 

 several miles. 



To fully realize the .destructive capabilities of the insect one 

 must see, no description will suffice, an army of the worms on the 



