310 CUT WORMS POPULAR IGNORANCE RESPECTING, 



2. INDIAN CORN. 



AFFECTING THE STALKS. 



Severing the young stalks by night at or near the surface of the ground ; a 

 thick cylindrical pale dull colored worm an inch or more in length. 



Cut-worms, the larvte of different species ofAgrotis, (plate 3, fig. 1, 2 and &.)• 



Common as the cut-worm is in all parts of our State and 

 country, our knowledge of it is still very imperfect. I remem- 

 ber in my boyhood it was a subject of discussion in my neighbor- 

 hood, whether if these worms were cut in two, both ends did not 

 live, thus producing two worms where but one existed before. 

 Though at this day I suppose no such absurd idea is anywhere 

 entertained, yet with regard to the transformations of these 

 worms, and their economy generally, very little authentic in- 

 formation is possessed. This clearly appears from the following 

 enquiry from West Haven, Ct., July, 1855, addressed to the 

 Albany Cultivator (third series, vol. iv, p. 115). "Will some 

 of your readers inform us how the Cut-worm is produced — 

 whether from the miller, or whether they bring forth their young 

 like the rabbit or any of the animal creation 1 I would like to 

 know also whether one kind of soil more than another, or 

 whether different manures, coarse or fine, have a tendency to 

 increase their numbers. Their name is legion with us, this sea- 

 son. More than thirty have been found around one cucumber 

 hill. Whole fields of cabbages have been cut down in a night. 

 The subject of their production has been up for discussion, but 

 no one seems to know, nor is there any author that we have 

 that throws any light on the subject. I have had some experi- 

 ence relating to their production, but it is so at varience with 

 my previous ideas that I want more light before publishing it." 



Whether the cut-worm is more numerous in one kind of soil 

 than another, I am unable to say. The soil of my own neigh- 

 borhood is a gravelly loam, and in this the cut-worm is common. 

 I presume it is equally common in sandy and clay soils. In one 

 instance, at the bottom of a bowl-shaped hollow, where the soil 



