WORMING. 



139 



while the other injures the leaf without endangering the 

 plant. A little plaster sprinkled around the hill sometimes 

 checks their progress, yet we have never found any remedy 

 that would hinder their depredations very much. The plants 

 should be kept growing as soon as transplanted, which will 

 be found the better method, as they will soon be too large for 

 the cut worm to 

 injure them much, 

 if at all. 



The "horn worm" 

 feeds upon the finest, 

 and largest leaves. 

 They are not found 

 as often on the 

 top leaves especi- 

 ally those growing 

 on the very highest 

 part of the stalk, as 

 they prefer the ripe 

 leaves and those 



lower on the plant. The horn worm, if large, eats the leaves 

 in the finest part of them, frequently destroying half of a 

 leaf. They leave large holes which renders the leaf worthless 

 for a cigar wrapper, leaving it fit only for fillers or seconds. 

 In Cuba the tobacco plant is assailed by three different kinds 

 of insects one attacks the foot of the leaves ; a second the 

 under side; a third devours the heart of the plant. In 

 Colombia the following are the great enemies of the tobacco 

 plant : A grub, named canne, which devours the young 

 buds ; the rosca-worm, which commits its depredations in the 

 night only, burrowing in the ground during the day; the 

 grub of a butterfly, called by the Creoles pdlometa ; a species 

 of scarabaeus called (trader, which feeds on the root of the 

 plant; and a species of caterpillar* which is called in the 



* Wallace says of worming tobacco in Brazil : " The plants are much attacked by the cat- 

 erpillar of a sphinx moth, which grows to a large size, and would completely devour the crop 

 unless carefully picked off. Old men, and women, and children are therefore constantly 

 employed going over a part of the field every day, and carefully examining the plants leaf by 

 leaf till the insects are completely exterminated." 



WORMING TOBACCO. 



