122 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



crops of blue-grass were swept by grasslioppers. lu Kendall and Blanco 

 Counties, Texas, immense swarms of this destructive insect are reported 

 as perforating the earth and lajing eggs for their next generation. 

 They afterward departed southward. 



A cut-worm {Agrotis?) was destructive to corn in Oakland and Cal- 

 houn Counties, Michigan ; Outagamie County, Wisconsin ; and Frank- 

 lin County, IMissouri. This insect was especially troublesome in com 

 planted upon sod-land that had not been Ml-plowed. Cut-worms were 

 also reported in New England and the Middle States as destructive to 

 corn, tobacco, meadows, and fruit. In North Carolina an insect, proba- 

 bly another variety of the cnt-worm, is reported as injuring cotton. In 

 Sullivan CouU'ty, Tennessee, the worms were dug out of the ground, as 

 many as sixty having been found in a single hill of corn. In Upshur 

 County, West Virginia, and in several counties in Ohio, Michigan, and 

 Indiana, the ravages of the cut-worm have been quite severe. This in- 

 sect is occasionally mentioned in the reports from Illinois and Missouri. 



Species of Agrotis were injurious to corn in Howard County, Maryland, 

 and in Cass County, Michigan. 



In Hamilton County, Indiana, and Lee County, Iowa, the hay-crop 

 was destroyed, and in Kew London County, Connecticut, the grass, in 

 many meadows, was eaten up at the roots by a worm which, most prob- 

 ably, was the Laclinosterna fusca. The white grub- worm — a name whicli 

 papulariy designates several species of the Laclinosterna — was more or 

 less injurious to corn in Cass County, Michigan ; in Noble and La Porte 

 Counties, Indiana; and in Muscatine and Mahaska Counties, Iowa. 

 The white grub was also destructive to sod-land com in Washington 

 County, Rhode Island. In a few other localities in Rhode Island and 

 Connecticut our August returns indicated injuries to oats, sod-corn, and 

 grass crops by the army- worm, (Leiicania unipuncta.) The army- worm 

 greatly damaged oats in CarroU and Ogle Counties, Illinois. In Cher- 

 okee and Labette Counties, Kansas, they did great mischief in newly- 

 sown wheat, especially on stubble-ground. Ravages of insects bearing 

 this name were reported in Pike and Posey Counties, Indiana, in White 

 County, Illinois, in Jefferson County, Iowa, and in Nevada County, Cal- 

 ifornia. 



Mr. Charles B. Thompson, of Elwood, New Jersey, writes to the De- 

 partment that after having made many inquiries as to the means of ex- 

 tirpating the rose-bug, and tried many reputed remedies without success, 

 he at length accomplished his object by the use of dry, unleached oak- 

 ashes. He scattered the ashes upon the vines and the branches of peach 

 and apple trees that were infested by the bug early in the morning, while 

 the dew was on the leaves. The result was that within four days after 

 this application the bugs had almost entirely disappeared. Mr. George 

 Hardy, of Avola, Vernon County, Missouri, has made a similar exper- 

 iment with the same favorable result. He writes to the Department 

 that to prevent the bugs from injuring his vines he scattered oak-ashes 

 (unleached) on them while the dew was on, and with such success 

 that a second application was unnecessary. 



The locust or Cicada made its regular seventeen-year visitation in 

 Wise County, Virginia, especially injuring young fruit-orchards. Locusts 

 were also annoying the peach-growers of Madison Count^^, North Caro- 

 lina. In Red River County, Louisiana, they injured young cotton-plants. 

 In Richland County they appeared May 14 and departed June 12. They 

 were present in immense numbers in Laurel County, Kentucky, from 

 May 13 to June 20, but did no serious^amage. They were more destruc- 



