208 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



nary calamity, such a one as the country never experienced 

 a before or since, beyond what I shall here specify. It 

 was an army of worms, which extended from Lancaster, 

 N. H., to Northheld, in Massachusetts. They began 

 I to appear the latter i)art of July, 1770, and continued 

 || their ravages until September. The inhabitants de- 

 <|^ nominated them the ' Northern Army,' as they seemed 

 %^ to advance from the north or north-west and to pass 

 ^M east and south, although I do not learn that they ever 

 ^^ passed the high lands between the Connecticut and 

 Merrimack rivers. They were altogether too innu- 

 merable for multitude. . . . There were fields of corn 

 on the meadows in Haverhill and Newbury standing so 

 thick, large and tall that in some instances it was diffi- 

 cult to see a man standing more than one rod in the 

 field from the outermost row ; but in ten days from the 

 first appeai-ance of this Northern Army nothing re- 

 mained of this corn but the bare stalks ! " 



The farmers of Worcester and vicinity suffered se- 

 verely from the ravages of this insect in grass lands 

 during the summer of 1817, when it is recorded that 

 ' ' their progress is as distinctly marked as the course 

 of a fire which has overrun the herbage in a dry past- 

 ure. Not a blade of grass is left standing in their rear. 

 We are informed that about forty years ago the same 

 kind of worm made great destruction in ploughed land, 

 among spring grain, but particularly in fields of flax." 



Of more recent occurrence are the sudden and de- 

 structive outbreaks of this pest in the years 1861, 1875 

 and 1880, when whole grass and grain fields were laid 

 waste, and in some localities farmers suflered a total 

 loss of their hay crop. 



The appearance of the army worm this year seems 

 ijeneral throuo;hout New Eno;land, eastern New York 

 and some parts of New Jersey. In this State its great- 

 est damage is in localities bordering on streams, tide- 

 water or marshes, an evidence that wet lands are the 

 natural home of the insect. 



Through the courtesy of Secretary Wm. R. Sessions 

 I was enabled to visit infested estates at Hingham and 



