222 DISEASES AND ENEMIES OP GROWING PLANTS. 



broken end should be well covered over with clay or with 

 grafting wax. Many valuable trees might be saved from 

 permanent injury or destruction in this way. 



788. Some of the insects most injurious to vegetation 

 are cut-worms, apple-tree caterpillars, canker worms, 

 apple-tree borers, codling-moths, the curculio, the striped 

 or cucumber-bug, the squash-bug, the onion-fly, the wheat 

 midge, the chinch-bug and the army worm. 



789. The cut-worms destroy many of our garden and 

 field vegetables by eating off their tender stalks at the 

 surface of the ground. They are the caterpillars of moths 

 belonging to the night-flying division, one of which is 

 represented in figure 49, and the cut-worm in figure 50. 



^fl^ 



Fig. 49. Fig. 50. 



790. If holes be made with an iron bar or smooth 

 round stick near the roots of the plant, the worms will 

 fall into them, and may be killed ; they may also be 

 found early in the day close to the roots of the plants 

 they have cut down during the night. 



791. Certain species of ground-beetles, and ichneumon- 

 flies destroy great numbers of cut-worms, and similar 

 caterpillars, and hence are very useful to the farmer, and 

 should be recognized and spared on this account. 



792. The ground-beetles arc very active in their 

 motions, and although varying greatly in size, more or 

 less resemble in their general outline and conformation, 

 figure 51, which is one of the largest of its class, and is 

 commonly called the caterpillar-hunter. 



