INSECTS AND THEIR REMEDIES. Ill 



to better pastures, which may even be provided for them 

 with advantage. But a bare fallow is destructive to 

 fertility in our climate, and a thick mulch should be pro- 

 vided, which when burnt off will destroy crickets, etc. , har- 

 boring under it. I can vouch both for this plan as a mea- 

 sure against cut-worms, as well as a means of fertility; 

 but it is rarely practicable. If in the rotation a clean 

 fall crop, not subject to cut-worms, can precede the one 

 to be put out, th latter will not be apt to suffer from 

 them. A cut-worm generally indicates its presence, 

 by a destroyed or injured plant, a cut leaf, or freshly 

 stirred soil, and, on a small scale at early morn, it may be 

 hunted at the root of the plant and killed; but never until 

 some damage has already been done. When the soil is 

 damp, the worm is generally to be found at early morn- 

 ing near the surface. In dry sandy soil, and as the day 

 advances, it burrows deeper. 



My method of dealing with cut-worms, of late years, 

 has been to remove them from the field, before the crop 

 to be jeopardized is up, or the plants are put out. 



By placing cabbage leaves and bunches of grass along 

 the rows of watermelon hills four years ago, I caught, 

 by hunting them daily, fifteen hundred and thirty-eight 

 worms on about one-fourth of an acre, before the seed 

 came up, and lost but a single melon plant. 



On one occasion, I captured, one morning, fifty-eight 

 of all sizes under a single turnip leaf, and my son found 

 fifteen at the root of a single small cabbage plant. But, 

 even when the worms were as abundant as this would indi- 

 cate, I found the process unsatisfactory and time-consum- 

 ing, and resorted to my present effective plan of poisoning 

 them. 



After the land is prepared for cabbages, or any other 

 crop needing protection, I place cabbage or turnip leaves 

 in rows fifteen or twenty feet apart all over the field, and 

 about the same distance apart in the rows. The leaves 



