THE RAISIN INDUSTRY. 101 



more brightly colored than the Achcemon. The former is more active 

 and often travels in enormous numbers, when it is called the army- 

 worm. The Ach&mon is more blunt at both extremities, the head 

 being almost truncate. 



Army-worms are smaller caterpillars, about one inch or more in 

 length, which breed on the outside weeds, and which, when feed be- 

 comes scarce, migrate to the vineyards and feed on the vines. These 

 caterpillars are the larvae of smaller moths of various genera such as 

 Prodenia and others. 



Cutworms are other caterpillars of moths of the genus Agrotis, which 

 feed on the branches of the vines, especially in the night-time, and in 

 the daytime bury themselves in the soil beneath the vine. They are 

 generally a gray or leathery color, while the army-worms are more 

 violet and darker. 



Damages. The damages from these various caterpillars are some- 

 times very large. Some years they occur in enormous quantities, and 

 hundreds of tons of them may then be packed from a vineyard of a 

 hundred acres of vines. The leaves are eaten by them, and the grapes 

 are either scalded by the sun or do not attain their sweetness and 

 coloring. Sometimes these various caterpillars are very common and 

 destructive for one or two years in succession, after which they disap- 

 pear and do not return to trouble the vines again for many years. 



Remedies. The great caterpillars, after they have once infested the 

 vineyard, can be destroyed by picking. A gang of men or boys should 

 be furnished with buckets, which are besmeared on the inside with 

 coal-oil. The caterpillars are picked and dropped in the buckets, from 

 which they cannot crawl out, and when the buckets are half filled they 

 may be emptied into trenches and covered up with soil. 



Many use small scissors, with which the caterpillars are cut in 

 twain while sitting on the vines. This will do for wine grapes, which 

 are grown higher above the ground, but will hardly be proper on the 

 low Muscat vines, as the contents of the caterpillars are apt to soil the 

 grapes. 



I have used Buhach sprays with ..great success. Ten pounds of 

 Buhach, with a hundred gallons of water, brought the caterpillars 

 down from the vines in forty-five minutes after spraying. As some, 

 however, recovered, it is best to kill as many as possible of those 

 which fall to the ground by punching them with a stick. The cost of 

 Buhach is, however, great, and the difficulty of encountering favorable 

 weather is such that this remedy is not apt to be extensively used. 



When the vineyards are threatened by the invasion of the army- 

 worms, or by the striped Deilephila caterpillar, the best remedy consists 

 in trenching. A narrow trench, say one foot or more wide and two 

 feet deep, with perpendicular sides, should immediately be dug around 

 the vineyard. If water is at hand, fill the trench with water, on which 

 some coal-oil may be poured, enough to cause a film on the surface. 

 If no water can be had, a log or scantling may be continually dragged 

 up and down the furrow or trench, so as to crush the caterpillars before 

 they can crawl out. In many places, however, the trench alone will 

 do the work, as the caterpillars will generally not be able to get up the 



