240 Forty-fifth Report on the State Museum. 



plaster over it — enough to prevent the grain from sticking 

 together, — and plant. When prepared as dii'ected, if a change 

 should occur in the weather to prevent planting, the corn may be 

 spread out upon a floor and allowed to remain until good planting 

 weather. 



As a test of the efficacy of the above preventive, a forty-four-acre 

 field of com was planted, — first, ten acres without the copperas 

 preparaition, — next to it, nearly ten acres with the prepared seed, 

 and the remainder with unprepared, — otherwise, all treated alike. 

 As the result, not a hill was cut or a worm was found where the 

 copperas had heen used; while the entire field elsewhere was cut, 

 from two to three hills out of five, with sometimes fifteen cut- 

 worms in a hill. 



There is a prejudice against the digging-out-hy-hand method, as 

 requiring too much valuable time and labor, and therefore not 

 available where large fields are to be protected; yet it is one of 

 the best means to be employed against this pest, unless the poison- 

 ing method recently recommended, and next to be referred to, shall 

 be found to give easier protection. 



Many of our preventives merel}^ drive away the hungry creatures 

 to attack and desti'oy other and perhaps more valuable crops; but 

 with a cut-worm dug out from its hiding-place beside a wilted 

 plant and killed, there is the satisfaction, not only that its pos- 

 sibility for further haim is ended, but that it will not develop 

 into a moth the following season, which might deposit 200 egg's, 

 each of which would produce a cut- worm. 



Mr. Armstrong, secretary of the Elmira Farmers' Club, has 

 stated : " There is really but one way to save the crop after the 

 plants are once attacked by cut-worms; that is, to dig the worms 

 out and kill them. It is not a difficult task, nor is it very costly. 

 I presume that a fourth part of the loss sustained would be a 

 full equivalent of all the labor it would cost. The wonn does 

 the mischief at night, and before morning burrows in the ground 

 near the spot where its depredations have been committed. A 

 practised eye will readily discern the entrance to the hiding- 

 place into which the worm has passed and lies concealed. The 

 way to bring the pest up is to thrust a pointed knife down near 

 the hole, and lift out the earth to the depth of two or three inches, 



