No. 5. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 307 



root. Some persons will be surprised to see what an amount of soil 

 they will turn up in a short time, and likewise what an immense 

 number of white grubs will be destroyed by them. There is just one 

 important point to bear in mind in this regard, and that is that a 

 very seriously injurious spiny-headed intestinal worm has its alter- 

 nating stage in the white grub as one of its hosts, and in the hog 

 has another of its hosts. In other words, when hogs eat white grubs 

 they are liable to become infested with seriously injurious internal 

 parasitic worms. This only happens when the same ground is used 

 for hog pasture each year or every other year. It is easy to avoid it 

 by making sure that there is an interval of at least two years be- 

 tween the pasturing of hogs on the same ground. We are at present 

 performing experiments for the extermination of this pest by the use 

 of gases and poisons in lawns. 



Cut worms were very bad early in the season, and took their toll 

 from the crops of orchards and fields. They, too, can be prevented 

 by late fall plowing and subsequent deep cultivation. The cut worm 

 has a life cycle of but on year, while that of the white grub endures 

 for three years. Cut worms are easily killed by poison bran mash. 

 Fifty pounds of bran and ten pounds of shorts can be mixed with 

 one-half pound of Paris green or dry arsenate of lead, and enough 

 old strong molasses added to give it an odor, with enough water to 

 dampen it slightly and make it cohere. Someone has suggested the 

 addition of two or three grated lemons to give an odor to attract the 

 pests, and experiments have proven this addition to be successful, 

 although we know where some of our German farmer friends in 

 Lancaster county successfully treated entire corn fields for cut worms 

 without the addition of grated lemons or oranges. This poison mash 

 should be scattered over the ground just as thinly as possible. Ten 

 pounds will prove to be enough to kill the cut worms on an acre if 

 spread thin, but there is no objection to the use of more. A very im- 

 portant point is that if scattered quite thin over the ground and 

 broken up into small masses, it will not kill domesticated fowls or 

 birds, even if they should eat it, as there will not be enough poison 

 in a small quantity such as they might take, to affect them. Two 

 Lancaster county farmers who followed our directions in doing this, 

 reported that they cleaned their corn fields of cut worms, while 

 others replanted the second or even the third time. By a small pinch 

 of this at the foot of each young tree the climbing cut worms can be 

 killed, and by scattering it where young plants, such as cabbage 

 plants, are set the cut worms are destroyed. We have killed as high 

 as nine cut worms around one cabbage plant in one night, finding 

 them dead in the morning. 



The most serious and conspicuous outbreak of pests on lawns of 

 this State was by the Army worm (Lucania uiiipuncta ) . This is a 

 species of cut worm which is present every year, but does not always 

 increase to such numbers as to "march" or mave from one feeding 

 place to another, and then receive the common name of ''Array 

 worm." Its damage was terrific to the lawns and gardens in nearly 

 all parts of Pennsylvania, eating away the grass in a single night, 

 until wliat was a beautiful lawn during the previous evening was but 

 a brown bare patch of ground the next morning. The inspectors of 

 the Bureau of Zoology were early on the job, and showed how to 

 control this pest by spraying with arsenate of lead or Paris green, 



