270 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



and ;iyii>ly!UC( it witli an ordinary sprinliler. The proportion be nsos is about a table- 

 spooDinl (if Paris ^Mceii to one-half gallon of water. Yesterday be bad nine men at 

 w'orli. iu bis field witb sprinkling-jjots, and tboy went over about 50 acres of corn, 

 lie iias one iiiau drive tbrougb the field witb a water-tank or barrels of water iu a 

 liinihcrwagnii, and the reet of tbe men with eprinkling-pots to sprinkle each bill witb 

 tbis solution of tbe Paris green. He puts sealing-wax on the -Bpriukler of tbe can, so 

 iis to close up all tbe boles except about a dozen in tbe center, thus avoiding a waste 

 of tbe solution on too much of tbe ground around the bill, and throwing tbe stream 

 directly on the plant. He tells us that this jilau is very successful, and kills most of 

 !liu worms within a half hour after it is applied, and what few worms arc left appear 

 to discontinue their work. 



A simple method ^vliich was put into operation by one of our corre- 

 spondents, Mr. Jacob Nixon, of Kello^^g, Cowley County, Kansas, and 

 which might prove of some avail where tbe worms are numerous, is de- 

 scribed as follows : 



I attached a crackei-box lid to the forward cross-piece on my cultivator frames 

 liy wire and staples, forming a bingo. This is raised by the corn, and, swinging, 

 strikes the next hill in a nearly vertical position, jarring the worms to the ground, 

 wjiere they are covered by the dirt. I did nofe stop to see whether the larger onca 

 burrowed out, but I know that I cleaned them out fast. 



THE DAEK-SIDED CUT-WOEM. 



{Agrotis niessoria, Harr.) 



Order Lepidopteka ; Family iSTocTUED^. 



[Plate YII; Fig. 1.] 



INJURY TO ONIONS— NEW HABIT. 



This insect was treated of in our last annual report (p. 290) under the 

 general head of Cabbage Cut- worms, and is here rehgured and men- 

 tioned because of its appearance the past summer in enormous numbers 

 in the onion fields of Orange County, New York. 



Our first intimation of tlie existence of this pest was through letter 

 and specimens received June 11, from Hon. G. W. Greene, of Goshen, 

 in which he stated that the worm was destroying the onion crop in his 

 vicinity and threatened extinction to a large and growing industry. 

 The annual value of the crop in the vicinity of Goshen alone he stated 

 to be half a million dollars. 



Mr. John B. Smith, and Mr. Thomas Bennett, a practical gardener of 

 Newark, whom we had engaged for a short time to perform certain prac- 

 tical experiments with insecticides, were sent to Goshen to study the 

 facts and surroundings, and iu obedience to a request from Mr. Greene 

 Ave sent him a letter for publication giving him such knowledge as we 

 then possessed on the subject, and quoting our general recommenda- 

 tions for the destruction of Cut-worms, as given in our last annual re- 

 port (pp. 208-300). 



HABITS AND NATURAL HISTORY". 



It will be seen from what we stated of this insect in our last annual 

 report (p. 290) thafit is a very wide-spread species, occurring from the 

 Pacific to the Atlantic, as far north as Quebec and as far south as Mis- 

 souri, and that so far as we -then knew, it had the normal habit of the 

 group, i. e.f was single-brooded, the moths occurring during July and 

 August, after a duration in the pupa state of a month or more. This 



