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plowed and is bare of vegetation and ready for planting, if the tobacco 
grower will thoroughly spray a patch of grass or weeds with Paris green 
and water, and will then cut it and drop it in little bunches here and 
there throughout the tobacco field, he will find that the cutworms in 
the soil, in the absence of other food, will eat this cut poisoned vege- 
tation and will be destroyed, so that 
the tobacco plants can be set out 
without fear of damage. 
Without such preventive treat- 
ment (and especially when, as indi- 
cated above, the land has grown up 
with weeds, grass, and other wild 
vegetation) before the planting out 
of the tobacco crop, the result will 
frequently be the cutting down by 
the cutworms of a large proportion 
of the tobacco plants; and the 
writer has known of instances 
where more than one-half of the Fic. 17.—Agrotis ypsilon, one of the tobacco 
cutworms: a, larva; b, head of same; ¢, 
crop had to be replanted. adult—natural size (original). 
Some farmers, instead of a poi- 
soned trap of green vegetation, prefer the so-called bran-arsenic mash, 
which originally came into use as a remedy against insects in Cali- 
fornia, where it was successfully used against the California devastat- 
ing grasshopper. It was first tried against cutworms in California 
also successfully. In the East it has been used against cutworms 
affecting different crops, and with the greatest success in southern 
Virginia against the Amer- 
ican locust or grasshopper. In 
the tobacco field it has also 
been successfully used against 
ecutworms in Florida. The 
bait, or mash, is prepared by 
thoroughly mixing Paris green 
and bran at the rate of 1 pound 
of Paris green to 450 or 75 
pounds of bran. Just before 
using, it should be moistened 
Fic. 18.—Agrotis annexa: a, larva; f, pupa; h, slightly with water and sweet- 
adult—natural size (h, original; others from Ann. rae 
Rept. U. S. Dept. Agr., 1894). ened with molasses. The 
Florida custom is to put a 
small ring of the poisoned mixture around each newly set plant, or to 
place a teaspoonful at two or three different places. Cutworms pre- 
fer this poisoned mash even to green vegetation. It should be 
renewed frequently, and fowls or live stock should not be allowed 
access to it. Mr. Quaintance recommends that where seed beds are 

