74 



THE ARMY WORM 



and found them to do excellent service. One of these — the 

 Standard Paris Green Duster — is shown diagrammatically in 

 Fig. 9. It is an admirable machine, and will distribute a 

 pound of Paris green evenly over an acre of potato vines. The 

 other, called Leggett's Insect Powder Gun, is shown in Fig. 10. 

 It is a slightly larger machine, costing also a little more, but it 

 does excellent work. With either of these machines the poison 

 can be applied much more easily than by any other method. 

 The poison can be applied to a strip of grass by the spray- 

 pump or nozzle, or even from a watering-pot, but this is an 

 unsatisfactory way, because the grass-blades do not hold the 

 spray. It would probably be better to dust the poison from the 

 bags on the end of poles. Cattle should not be allowed in the 

 field so treated until there has been plenty of time for the rains 

 to wash the poison into the soil. 



Fig. 10. Leggett's Insect Powder Gun. (Original). 



Drawing the Rope. — One of the earliest devices resorted to for 

 the prevention of injury to wheat by the army worm was that of 

 "■ drawing the rope." In his account of the attack of army 

 worms in 1770. Mr. Powers writes that " two men would take 

 a rope, one at each end, and pulling from each other until it 

 was nearly straightened, they would pass through their wheat- 

 fields and brush oft' the worms from the stalks and by perpetual 

 action thev retarded the destruction of their wheat ; but it was 

 doomed finally to destruction." Of course this is a laborious 

 and generally impracticable device, which might be used to ad- 

 vantage only under exceptional circumstances. 



