Climbing Cutworms. 677 



augurated at once. This fact was einpliasized in one orchard at 

 Forest Lawn in 1894. The owner had effectively protected the 

 buds with the cotton bands, but we fouud him taking them off, 

 although tliere were then many cutworms in the soil at the base of 

 the trees. When questioned, he showed us several trees where the 

 bark had been eaten off in large patches on the trunks just below 

 the bands, sometimes nearly girdling small trees. ' The bands had 

 even then better have been left on the trees, but the instance served 

 as an illustration of the necessity of killing the pests to prevent 

 their further depredations and their future multiplication for an- 

 other crop of cutworms to harass the fruit-grower the next season. 

 They can be easily killed in several ways with a very little extra 

 labor. 



While at work at night, they can be readily jarred onto sheets 

 (perhaps a curculio- catcher might be used in some cases) and then 

 killed or fed to poultry. The best time would be about nine or ten 

 o'clock, and it must be continued every night for about two weeks, 

 beginning as soon as the buds begin to swell in the spring. In most 

 cases this will prove a more laborious process than some others to 

 be suggested. 



Hand-picking always carries with it the suggestion of too much 

 work, and yet no one can doubt its effectiveness, and it is a very 

 practicable and profitable method in many cases. It was the 

 method employed by the Indians in this country centuries ago to 

 protect their corn from cutworms.* It can be profitably applied in 

 the case of climbing cutworms, either in connection with the cotton 

 protectors or separately. 



At Forest Lawn, one fruit-grower had his boy go out every night 

 with a lantern and pick off and kill all the worms found on the 



*In tlie account of his v()yaji,e to New Eugland, printed in Loudon in 1672, Jos- 

 selyn gives the following quaint description of this method as he saw it prac- 

 ticed : "There is also a dark, dunnish Worm or Bug of thebisrness of an Oateu- 

 straw, and an inch long, that in the Spring lye at the root of Corn and Garden 

 phiiits all day, and in the night creep out and devour them ; these in some years 

 destroy abundance of IndiaH Corn and Garden plants, and they have but one way 

 to be rid of them, which the English have le.-vrned of the Indians ; and because it 

 is somewhat strange, I shall tell you how it is, they go out into a field or garden 

 ■with a Birchen-dish, and spudding the earth about the roots, for they lye not 

 deep, they gather their dish full which may contain a quart or three pints, then 

 they carrie the dish to the Sea-side when it is ebbing water and set it a swim- 

 ming, the water carrieth the dish into the Sea, and within a day or two you go 

 into your field you may look your eyes out sooner than find any of them." 



