INJURIOUS INSECTS. 321 



or fifty parts of plaster by measure to one of the green. This 

 does not form a paste, and can be added in quantity without 

 danger to the vines indeed the plaster may be useful but 

 the first heavy rain will wash it off. 



ENEMIES. I might enumerate and describe the score or more 

 of natural enemies, birds and insects, which attack and destroy 

 this potato beetle ; but as they will not for long years, if ever, 

 make the use of the Paris green unnecessary, and as this article 

 is only to deal with practical problems, I will omit this inter- 

 esting part of the subject. 



Cut-worms. Agrotians. Family, Noctuidce. Order, Lep- 

 idopetera. Little, if any, inferior to the potato beetle in its de- 

 struction to our field crops is the cut-worm. The cut-worms 

 (for there are several species which claim tribute from the grain- 

 grower), are not confined in their operations to a single staple, 

 for nearly all our cereals, grasses, and especially our corn crops, 

 are made to contribute to their support. 



The cut-worms are so named from their prodigal habits of 

 cutting off plants ; not taking their fill on a single plant, leaving 

 all uneaten undisturbed, but, as if totally depraved, rejoicing 

 in rioting and wantonness, they simply cut the plants asunder, 

 thus ruining every plant that they attack. 



These destroyers are called surface caterpillars in England, 

 doubtless from the fact that 

 they lie concealed by day just 

 beneath the earth surface. In 

 Kurope they are dreaded from 

 their effect on grasses, and such 

 injury in this country, though 

 less patent than that done to 

 corn, is by no means inconsid- FI - 2 - A *"> lta sbgothica. 



erable. In Europe the loss of a third of a crop is ruinous; here 

 it is common, and hardly causes comment. 



The cut-worms are no foreigners, "being to the manor 

 born." Even the Indians found in them a foe fully as persist- 

 ent if not as formidable as the white man. 



NATURAL HISTORY. The natural history of these insects 



21 



