PESTS OF TOBACCO. 247 



means may be found for spreading the disease among 

 cutworms, and thus kill them by the wholesale. 



Wireworms, the larvae of the "Click beetle" or 

 "Snapping bug" (ElateridcB), sometimes bore into the 

 stalks of the plants, but they never attack the leaves. 



The "Bud Worm" (Heliothis armigera), Fig. 62, 

 attacks the bud and tender leaves at the top of the to- 

 bacco plant before they are unfolded, and sometimes 

 work the greatest injury. One of these worms may ruin 

 a dozen young leaves in a few days. Hand picking is 

 the only remedy for tobacco, though carefully spraying 

 with Paris green is suggested. These worms are always 

 most destructive in cloudy weather. This is the dread- 

 ful bollworm of the cotton planter and corn worm of 

 the North. The tobacco bud worm has been observed 

 on weeds belonging to the same family as tobacco, but 

 has not been generally accounted a tobacco insect. At 

 the Kentucky station, worms left tobacco and went into 

 the ground August 10, and adult moths came out 

 August 24 and 25. Since their original food plant was 

 probably some one of the weeds known as ground cherry 

 and horse nettle, it would be well always to destroy such 

 plants when growing about tobacco. 



Crickets. There is a greenish tree cricket ((Ecan- 

 tJius niveus), Fig. 63, that occasionally does much 

 injury to the leaves of tobacco, by eating round holes in 

 them. It does not kill the leaf or arrest the growth, 

 but the small holes increase in size longitudinally, as the 

 leaves grow in length. This insect begins its depreda- 

 tions in July in the southern tobacco regions, and in 

 August in Pennsylvania. Tobacco planted near trees 

 suffers most from its depredations. This pest infests 

 blackberry and raspberry canes, and tobacco should not 

 be set near them. 



Grasshoppers. The meadow grasshopper (Orcheli- 

 tmim vnlgare) is sometimes very destructive on the to- 



