140 Bugs, Butterflies, and Beetles 



CUT- WORM MILLERS 



The tent caterpillar is a nuisance, the army- 

 worm an aggravation, but the meanest, most un- 

 principled, disreputable caterpillar among the in- 

 habitants of the orchard and garden is the cut- 

 worm! This disagreeable, dark-colored, hairless 

 caterpillar lies hidden in the ground waiting for 

 one to seTt out a row of tomato plants, young cab- 

 bages or anything nice in the vegetable line in 

 which one takes great pride, and then at night he 

 sallies forth and bites off all the stems near the 

 surface of the ground. 



Cock robin helps keep these fellows in sub- 

 jection and eats great numbers of them, but the 

 only safe way to protect the young plants from 

 the cut-worm is to put a little collar of stiff paper 

 around each stem, allowing the lower edge of the 

 collar to extend down into the ground. 



I might say more things about cut-worms ( Fig. 

 139 and 141), but they are no friends of mine. I 

 do not like their methods, in fact I do not like their 

 character; the cut- worm is not a fit associate for 

 decent people and I rank it with men who poison 

 pet dogs. 



Most of the moths (Figs. 140 and 142) appear 



