OF AGRICULTURE. 73 



few drops of this mixture into the cup of the flower, 

 about sunset. It is certain to destroy the moths. 



But, while planters are looking for so many arti- 

 ficial means to destroy insects, they are apt to over- 

 look the great daily benefits derived from other 

 agents, which kind nature has provided to check their 

 increase. These agents are the birds, which constantly 

 destroy insects in their varied forms larva, pupa, or 

 perfect insect. Mocking-birds and bee martins catch 

 and destroy the boll- worm moth with great avidity. 

 If the fields were plowed in the fall, many insects 

 and chrysalides are turned to the top of the furrow 

 slice', and either fall a prey to the ever- busy bird, or 

 perish from frost and cold, 



INSECTS WHICH TEED UPON THE STALK, 



The Cut Wo.rm. The cotton cut worm is similar in 

 its habits and appearance to many of the cut worms 

 of the gardens ; they penetrate the earth close to the 

 plant, and at night emerge from their retreats to 

 gnaw off the plant at or near the ground. A gen- 

 tleman in Alabama, who had been troubled with this 

 pest, informed the author that a particular spot of 

 four or five acres, which had been overflowed in the 

 spring, had been litterally thronging with the cut 

 worm, threatening the loss of his whole crop. , He 

 turned into the enclosure twenty or thirty young- 

 pigs, which soon discovered the worms, rooted them 

 up in vast numbers, and fattened on this singular 

 diet. The cotton was not injured, as the pigs were 

 too ynoung to root deep enough to destroy the plants. 

 The pigs remained where the worms were to be 

 found, never troubling any other portion of the field. 

 4 



