72 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1898. 



one of our members stated that the destruction of robins in the 

 South during a recent winter led to greater loss in Massachusetts 

 on account of the increased ravages of cutworms than that 

 caused by the frosts in Florida. It is true our robins are fairly 

 efficient destroyers of cutworms, still they only feed by day, 

 while cutworms work at night, and robins can get at them only 

 in the late evening and early morning. The toad feeds all 

 night and only on the ground, where the cutworm is at work. 

 Furthermore, as we learn from Mr. Kirkland's recent work 

 (and this is something well worth the entire cost of our Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station for the year, if the people are 

 wise enough to utilize his results) cutworms form a considerable 

 part of the toad's food. From examinations of a large number 

 of toads' stomachs Kirkland estimates that a single toad may 

 destroy over 2,000 cutworms during the months of May, June 

 and July, and that from this item alone a single one of these 

 harmless creatures may well do a gardener service to the amount 

 of $19.88 each season. A number of our experiment stations 

 are at work upon some method of ridding gardens of cutworms, 

 and they have tried various poisons and devised various ways of 

 applying them ; but what we really need is sufficient public edu- 

 cation to protect and properly utilize our valuable little friend, 

 the toad. 



In order to illustrate what I mean by education in such lines 

 allow me to instance the following example. Since coming to 

 Worcester, my feelings have been greatly outraged every spring 

 by the way the boys clubbed and stoned the toads in the little 

 pond in University Park. Toward the latter part of April or 

 the first few days of May the toads of a neighborhood gather 

 in the nearest stagnant water to deposit their eggs. Since most 

 of the natural pools in a city are either filled in or drained, they 

 crowd into the remaining ponds literally by the thousands. If 

 the weather is warm the eggs are laid within a day or two of 

 entering the water and the toads return, probably to the same 

 yards and gardens from which they came. In the particular pond 

 in question they gather in shoals in which a single blow of a stick 

 might kill half a dozen and a stone could hardly fail to mutilate 



