SPECIAL CROPS. 228 



few escape these three methods of destruction will deposit 

 their eggs on the leaves. They cut the mid-rio or main fibre 

 of the leaf, and bend it over, fastening it down with a slender 

 thread, and within the shelter thus formed, deposit their eggs. 

 After the moths disappear, which will be in about ten days 

 after their first appearance, put your whole foice into the field 

 and let every leaf thus curled up be gathered and burned. 

 These leaves are readily distinguished after examining one 

 sample. The planter may now feel at ease, for his enemy is 

 destroyed. If not destroyed at this time, thete will appear in 

 about a month an innumerable host of them, and in a few days 

 a more innumerable host of worms. The Army Worm is a 

 formidable foe. He eats every green thing in his track. An 

 army of these worms marches in regular order, and the planter 

 has time to prepare for them. When you hear of their ad- 

 vance towards you, bring out your force and plow a trench 

 about your place, beginning on the south and west. Let it be 

 deepened with the hoe and spade to eighteen inches, with a 

 smooth perpendicular wall on the inside up which they cannot 

 climb. As soon as they make their appearance at this trench, 

 put a patrol with plows and spades along tlic line, to ploAr 

 under the pests, if they find any weak spots and make their way 

 through. Straw and dry sedge grass laid in the ditch and 

 burned will destroy many of them. The Ball Worm belongs 

 to the corn field, but migrates to the cotton fields when the 

 corn gets hard. There are three methods of lessening their 

 ravages. The first is to build fires about the corn fields at 

 dusk, during the first two weeks of July, when the moths are 

 flying, and before they deposit their eggs. Millions will be 

 thus destroyed, and as every pair destroyed would breed some 

 five hundred or more ball worms, it is readily seen that this 

 proceeding ie very effective. The second method is included in 



