the ground for some distance round the beds, say 30 yards in 

 all directions, and to bait this ground thoroughly before sowing. 

 If the beds are in a rich vlei, as they usually are, the surround- 

 ing veld is liable to contain cutworms in September and 

 October. The clearance will leave a wide margin over which 

 the cutworms would have to travel to reach the seed beds. 



Whatever form of bait is used, it should be distributed to- 

 wards evening to avoid the drying effect of the sun's heat. The 

 bait is most effective the first night after distribution, and if 

 the ground treated has been cleared for some little time, the 

 cutworms will be hungry, and the great bulk should find the 

 bait and poison themselves during the first night. The baiting 

 can be repeated with advantage a week later. 



To protect the beds from becoming infested with cutworms 

 after the plants are above ground, the greatest care should be 

 given to the soundness of the covering material, to its proper 

 adjustment each night, and to the tightness of the bricks en- 

 closing the beds. The aim is to exclude the adult moths, which 

 are liable to be attracted by the array of green, to deposit their 

 eggs on or about the plants. The plants are above ground in 

 the seed beds for nearly seven weeks, whilst cutworm eggs 

 hatch in from a week to ten days, and it has been found in the 

 course of feeding experiments at Salisbury that the larvae of 

 one species attain the length of three-quarters of an inch in 

 about seventeen days. They are then entering upon a very 

 destructive period in their lives, and are capable of severing 

 plants of some size. In twenty-eight days their length had 

 reached one inch, and from this time forward for about eight 

 days, when the insects began to pupate, their appetite was very 

 voracious and their growth very rapid. It will be seen, there- 

 fore, that eggs laid on young plants produce cutworms that in- 

 crease in size with the plants, and are big enough to sever the 

 plants when nearing a condition of suitability for planting out. 

 When it is remembered that a single female moth may lay up- 

 wards of seventeen hundred eggs, the desirability of excluding 

 them from the seed beds is obvious. Cutworm moths are noc- 

 turnal in habit, so that the coverings of the beds need only be 

 moth proof at night. 'A tour of inspection round the seed beds 

 the last thiner in the evening would repay the trouble. This 

 method can hardly be relied upon to exclude all moths, as some 

 are likely to find their way in through any opening that is left. 



