we 
53 
One of the most interesting places for observation we visited was that of 
Wm. J. Porter, a practical and energetic farmer, who, although he has fought the 
worms most vigorously, has suffered severely from their attacks. By means of 
ditching and by burning straw, he has been able to save part of his crops, but 
several of his fields of corn, timothy and wheat, were already ruined. He 
reported the worms much less numerous than they had been, but we saw many 
thousands in his fields. 
During our rambles Mr. Porter took us to one of the ditches he had dug to 
keep the worms out of a large corn-field. In this ditch he had sunk every two 
or three yards apart, deeper pits, where we found the worms two and three inches 
deep, and the rest of the ditch was black with the dead ana living worms. From 
the dead a fearful stench arose in such strength as to attract the buzzards, which, 
as we viewed the scene, were proudly sailing overhead. 
Mr. Porter informed us that the worms always originated in the wheat and 
old grass-fields, and during the morning hid themselves from observation, never 
appearing in numbers until after 3 o’clock p.m., which accorded with our own 
observations and with those of the other farmers visited. 
They ate up the timothy and corn clean, and after devouring the blades 
of the wheat congregated, three or four together, on the heads ; after devouring 
several of the lower grains they ate the husks and nipped off the upper portion 
of the kernel of the rest, thus almost entirely destroying it. If the grain is well 
advanced and somewhat hard it escapes destruction ; but as most of the wheat 
visited was still in the milk the destruction was great, and not less than 75 per 
cent. of the crop had been already destroyed. 
Although several parasites are known to prey upon the worms, and we kept 
a sharp lookout for such, none were seen except a few cocoons of an Apanteles 
which were discovered, together with the worms, under old trash and logs in a 
wheat-field. A few were gathered and forwarded to the Department, some of 
which have since hatched, and proved to be Apanteles militaris, Walsh. 
On a neighboring farm, owned by Mr. Z. Rouch, almost as much damage had 
been done by the army worm as on the former place. A large corn-field and a 
field of timothy were totally ruined. A wheat-field, farther advanced than that 
of Mr. Porter's, was less seriously affected, although it did not escape entirely, the 
blades of the wheat and the young timothy being entirely eaten up by them. 
It was on this place that we saw the effects of the worms on barley. Quite 
a large field already in head was completely ruined. 
In the afternoon we visited probably the largest farm in the county, that of 
the Hon. D. N. Dennis, comprising 500 acres or more. 
No better place existed for the proper study of the pest, as the worms were 
swarming in all the fields by the millions, and we had hit upon the proper time 
of day to see them most advantageously, 4 o’clock pm. The ground was literally 
black with the crawling worms. Mr. Dennis had made no special efforts to 
destroy them, although, like some of his neighbours, he had surrounded some of 
his fields with ditches in an attempt to keep them out of adjoining fields. I 
believe it would have been quite practicable to have destroyed many thousands 
with poisonous washes, or, as Mr. Potter did, by burning straw in the ditches, as 
the bottom of the ditches were black with worms. 
This farm is divided by a central lane, on either side of which are fields of 
wheat, corn, grass, oats, etc., and in passing through this lane we found the worms 
quite plentiful, crawling almost invariably in the direction of the prevailing 
wind. 
