RELATION TO THE FARMER 



259 



eats by preference the flowers of the grape and thus at 

 once destroys the crop without injurmg the plant 

 itself. Some cut-worms, hiding out of sight during 

 the day, cut off the stalk at base for convenience of 

 feeding, leaving the tops on the surface to dry and 

 perish. Or they climb on the shrub or tree and eat 

 out the buds or growing tips, destroying the crop if 

 not the plant. 



This brings up the fact that in his method of culti- 

 vation the farmer frequently forces upon himself an 

 injury which the insects would not under normal con- 

 ditions inflict. If a field be left fallow or in grass for a 

 year or two, it will almost inevitably attract the night- 

 flying or owlet moths of the family NoctnidcB, whose 

 larvae, the cut-worms, feed normally on grasses and a 

 great variety of low plants. These cut-worms, or many 

 of them, winter half grown in sod or rubbish on the 

 surface of the ground, coming out to resume their 

 feeding in spring. If now, in early spring, the farmer 

 plows this infested sod and plants com or potatoes, 

 or sets out cabbages, tomatoes or sweet potatoes, he 

 deprives the cut-worms of their natural food and prac- 

 tically forces them to take what he has set in its place. 

 Furthermore, while a popidation of one cut- worm per 

 square foot would not be a very serious infestation in 

 grass land, it would be destructive in a cornfield, or in 

 a cabbage patch. And not only are cut-worms favored 

 in this w^ay: there are weevils known as bill-bugs, 

 attacking corn planted on timothy sod or following 

 certain other grasses, and there are wire-worms and 

 white grubs that attack cultivated crops when they are 

 put in after grass or other infested plants. Of course 

 this means bad farm practice from the standpoint of 

 the entomologist; but not until quite recently have the 

 farmers been willing to consider any modification 



