Season of 1S16. 221 



5th. In respect to preparing the soil for corn, we ge- 

 nerally agree that ploughing in the fall is best ; though it 

 is not a positive preventive of the worm, it puts the ground 

 in better order. I recommend marking out for the corn 

 the first week in May, then digging holes about ten inch- 

 es square in some of the furrows, say eight or ten in a fur- 

 row, and if the worms are very numerous, in every eighth 

 or tenth furrow. I have known one hundred worms caught, 

 in many holes, for a number of nights in succession. As 

 the worms don't begin to travel until about the 10th of 

 May, I would incline to plant about the 6th, and imme- 

 diately make a hole in each hill, with an instrument made 

 similar to a surveyor's staff, with an iron socket on it, 

 about six inches long, and a sharp point at the lower end. 

 By making a hole about three inches deep, at the top of 

 the hill, as near the corn as may be, I have caught from 

 five to fifteen in each hole. They cannot get out. After 

 the corn came up, I sent a boy over the field every morn- 

 ing ; if he found a stalk cut, he pulled out the worm and 

 killed him. By the above means, I saved the last plant- 

 ing of my field of corn, the first planting having been de- 

 stroyed. Although they began to go out of a grass field 

 into my corn field, I carefully stopped them by plough- 

 ing a deep furrow, and turning it towards the grass field, 

 digging a number of square holes in it : the furrow ought 

 to be kept square on the side next to the corn. My 

 neighbour, Jesse Pyle, had a lot of clover of about five 

 acres, which the worms totally destroyed, and were mov- 

 ing from thence to his wheat field. He ploughed a fur- 

 row along each side of the field, and dug holes, to the 

 amount of about fifty, in each furrow, of about ten inches 



