682 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



jpracticLihle quantities will have anj destructive effects on cutworms. 

 Ill some cases they may stimulate the plants to such an extent as 

 to enable them to quickly get beyond or outgrow cutworm injuries. 



Applications of any kind to the plant are not always successful ; 

 if the worms confine tlieir work to the leaves, they may be reached 

 by thorough work with a Paris green spray. During the outbreak 

 in the onion fields mentioned, it was found that they were very 

 susceptible to kerosene and many were killed by spraying the plants 

 at night with it. As the undihited kerosene injures many plants, 

 the kerosene emulsion has been advised instead, and it may prove a 

 valuable destructive agent where the worms appear in excessive 

 numbers. It should be applied at night when the worms are at 

 work, and the strength at which it can be used will have to be 

 determined for each crop, as plants differ much in their susceptibility 

 to injury from it. 



Probably the method most often practiced in gardens, and which 

 can not fail to be effective when faithfully carried out, is hand- 

 picking wn'th lanterns at night or digging them out from around 

 the base of the infested plants during the day. Bushels of cutworms 

 have been gathered in this way and with profit. When from some 

 cause success does not attend the use of the poisoned baits, discussed 

 next, hand-picking is the only other method yet recommended which 

 can be relied upon to check cutworm depredations. 



By far the best methods yet devised for killing cutworms in any 

 situation are the poisoned l)aits ; hand picking is usually unnecessary 

 where they are thoroughly used. "What has been said in regard to 

 their use against climbing cutworms has equal force here. Poisoned 

 bunches of clover or weeds have been thoroughly tested, even by 

 the wagon-load over large areas, and nearly all (Mr. Goff's experi- 

 ment at the Wisconsin Station is the most notable exception reported) 

 have reported them very effective; lamb's-quarters, pepper-grass, 

 and mullein are among the weeds especially attractive to cutworms. 

 On small areas the making of the baits is done by hand, but they 

 have been prepared on a large scale by spraying the plants in the 

 field, cutting them with a scythe or machine, and pitching them 

 from wagons in small bunches wherever desired. Distributed a 

 few feet apart between rows of garden plants at nightfall, they have 

 atttacted and killed enough cutworms to often save a large pro- 

 portion of the crop ; if the bunches can be covered with a shingle, 

 they will keep fresher much longer. The fresher the baits, and the 



