88 THE EEPOET OF THE No. 36 



of you who have observed the work of the army worm in such fields find that in 

 the day time the worms are in the sheath concealed by the foliage, and the question 

 arises, can a poison bran destroy the pest in the corn under those conditions. Per- 

 sonally I did very little work with the army worm. I made the test of the poisoned 

 bran incidentally, and had to go away at once. The report when I came back was 

 very favourable, we were not able to see it tested out in the grain fields. There 

 were 270 killed to one yard m our test. That was where it was thrown over a field 

 just like you would for the grasshoppers — five pounds to about 4 acres. 



The Peesident : We are very pleased to have with us Mr. Vernon King, who 

 is a former student of the Agricultural College, and is now on his way to England 

 to take part in the defense of the Empire, in which he will have our very sincere 

 wishes for his safe return and success, and we should like to hear from him his 

 experience in Missouri, wliere I believe they had some work carried on with the 

 army worm under Mr. Webster of the United States Bureau of Entomology, Wash- 

 ington. 



Mr. King : Thank you for your kind wishes for my welfare. As regards my 

 work in Missouri, things are a little different. There are different conditions as re- 

 gards entomological work than there are here. We have not the diversity of crops 

 which you have here, and we do not meet with the difficulties in controlling the army 

 worm down there. In two years — the last two years, 1913 and this spring — the 

 army worms were very numerous in our locality, and always appeared in the wheat 

 earlier, and were always preceded by large numbers of Boibolink and Eed-winged 

 Black birds, so that the farmers even now helieve that they are responsible for the 

 army worm. They do not distinguish between the two birds. They just give them 

 a casual glance. The strange thing is that both times I have been there, the birds 

 did precede the army worm, and when the latter were most numerous the birds went, 

 so they asked me for an explanation. They would say that the birds had the germs 

 in their wings and fluttered them out over the wheat. I tried to explain that that 

 was not the case, and they wanted to know how I knew. I tried to explain that, too. 

 I cannot account for the fact that they come when the food is plentiful unless the 

 birds happen to be migrating at that time and going north, and possibly they may 

 feed on the army worm. , 



As to the control of the army worm, I have had an opportunity of seeing large 

 numbers of instances of ditching. As Mr. Baker said, it depends upon the soil and 

 the- way they do it. The best way I have seen is to plough a furrow and drag along 

 by a chain a log about 8 inches in diameter; a darkey would sit on this with two 

 sticks to balance himself. I have tried that, and it takes a little practise, especially 

 in turning corners. That is the first process with a little log of small diameter which 

 gets right to the bottom of the furrow. Next they use a little larger log of about 14 

 inches diameter. That of course gets some at the bottom and some at the side, and 

 they finish off with a barrel, the darkey still sitting on it with his legs crossed and 

 resting on the whipple-tree. That is in the morning about 8 o'clock. The worms 

 come out about 2. The barrel makes the sides smooth. The worms continue for 

 about ten days. I have seen some men in the hard land dig post holes, but that 

 has no effect what-ever for the holes soon fill up with clods. The best success was 

 with the dragging. 



The farmers claimed that the worms were beneficial in the wheat because they 

 ate the leaves off. 



In the post holes the Calosoma Beetles gathered in large numhers, and so 

 while I was collecting some army worm parasites (there are lots there, 



