50 

 wiKEwoRMs. (Figure No. 37.) 



Order, Coleoptera; Family. Elateridce. 



Sometimes heavily-manured soil especially, becomes infested with small, 

 slender, hard grubs, familiarly known as wireworms. These are especially 

 damaging to succulent vegetables, but occasionally attack the young nur- 

 sery stock. 



Figure No. 37. 



A dressing of salt, at the rate of five hundred pounds to the acre, is 

 beneficial for the purpose; and, in England gaslime, according to Miss 

 Ormerod, has been also used with success. One thousand pounds to the 

 acre could also be used with impunity, provided it is not thrown up against 

 the plants. 



The mature insect, which is developed from the wire worm, is the click- 

 beetle, well known for the way it snaps its body together when touched. 



CHAPTER VI. 



LEAF-EATING CATERPILLARS. 



Cutworms — Remedies for — Clisiocampa — Methods for destrojdng the caterpillars — The 

 fall webworm — Arsenical poisons — Tussock moth — The red-humped caterpillar. 



CUTWORMS. 



Order, Lepidoptera; Family, Noctuidse. 



Sometimes, in the early part of the season, not only our vegetables and 

 grapevines, but also young trees are completely stripped of their foliage, 

 and the only trace of an insect at work we find is their castings. Upon 

 sgraping the loose dirt around the trees a fat, soft, dull-colored worm will 

 be found. This is the so called cutioorm, of which a number of species 

 are found in the State, chiefly belonging to the species Agrotis and the 

 family of Noctui, or owlet moths. In appearance and habits these cutworm 

 moths resemble each other very much. They are nearly all dull-colored 

 brown and gray mottled, changing in the ground to a brown chrysalis. The 

 moth flies at night and the worm hides during the heat of day, working 

 chiefly at night.. 



