1867. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



877 



push strongly, and produce another cluster of 

 flowers each. When these are visible, the branch 

 to which they belong is also topped down to their 

 level ; and this is done five times successively. 

 By this means, the plants become stout, dwarf 

 bushes, not above eighteen inches high. In order 

 to prevent their falling over, sticks or strings are 

 stretched horizontally along the rows, so as to 

 keep the plants ei'cct. In addition to this, all lat- 

 erals that have no flowers, and after the fifth top- 

 ping, all laterals whatsoever, are nipped off. In 

 this way, the ripe sap is directed into the frixit, 

 which acquires a beauty, size, and excellence 

 unattainable by other means." 



But in ordinary field culture, and by those who 

 raise tomatoes for the market, little attention is 

 paid to training or trimming. 



THE CTJT WORM. 



As the origin and hal)its of the Cut "Worm have 

 been a sulyect of douljtful disputation, I will here 

 relate my experiments. The latter part of last 

 August I procured some of the worms, placed 

 them in a box with earth, fed them on tobacco 

 leaves until they refused to eat, and buried them- 

 selves in the earth. In two weeks I dug them up 

 and found they had gone through a state of trans- 

 formation, each one being encased in what I shall 

 term a sarcophagus, about an inch in length, beiaig 

 pointed, and resembling in form a gimblet handle, 

 with traces of legs, wings and horns thereupon, 

 denoting it would come up a winged animal. I 

 broke open one of them and found it to contain 

 thousands of eggs, about the size of a grain of 

 sand. I covered them up again, and in the latter 

 part of September they came up brown millers 

 containing the eggs. These millers deposit their 

 eggs in the fall upon decaying vegetation, and die, 

 their mission being fulfilled. The eggs remain 

 amid the wreck of decayed vegetation, and are 

 ploughed under in the spring, and as the ground 

 warms and vegetation increases, they burst their 

 fetters, and the worm renews his ravages. And 

 so on through successive generations. The leaf 

 tobacco worms, with which I have*" likewise exper- 

 imented, remain in their sarcophagus until spring, 

 and come up large white millers, which deposit 

 their eggs upon the plant in the stillness of night 

 and morning, and in eight and forty hours they 

 become worms three quarters of an inch in length. 

 They sometimes are found upon the tomato plant, 

 varying somewhat in their outlines, but the insect 

 is the same. Leander Morton. 



Hatfield, Mass.] June, 1867. 



Remarks. — After these experiments, we are con- 

 fident that our correspondent is not only better 

 prepared to contend against the ravages of these 

 voracious worms, but he has a new interest in their 

 history. Several years ago. Prof. Harris, author 

 of a most valuable book on Insects Injurious to 

 Vegetation, tried a similar experiment with quite 

 a large number of cut worms, gathered in June 

 and July, from near cabbage plants, potato hills, 

 cornfields, and the flower garden. They were all 

 very similar in appearance, though different in 

 size. They were soon changed to what naturalists 

 call chrysalids, a preferable word, perhaps, to that 

 used by our correspondent. The word sarcopha- 

 gus, according to Webster's Dictionary, is now 

 generally used to denote any stone cofBn or recep- 



ticle for the dead. Primarily it meant flesh-eating, 

 and at first it was applied to coffins made of a kind 

 of lime stone that consumed the flesh of bodies in 

 a few weeks. 



Between the twentieth of July and the fifteenth 

 of August, Mr. H. says his chrysalids changed 

 to the moth state, and came out of the earth. 

 Much to his surprise, however, these cut-worms 

 produced five different species of moths. The an- 

 nexed cuts illustrate the regular transformations 

 of the peach tree borer, and other high orders of 



Worm. Cocoon. Chrysalis, 



insects. Most of the insects, says Mr. Harris, as 

 they leave off eating, spin around their bodies a 

 sort of shroud or cocoon, into which some inter- 

 weave the hairs of their own bodies, and some em- 

 ploy, in the same way, leaves, bits of wood, or 

 even grains of earth. Other catei'pillars suspend 

 themselves, in various ways, by silken threads, 

 without enclosing their bodies in cocoons; and 

 again there are others which merely enter the earth 

 to undergo their transformations. The cut worms 

 form no cocoons, but are changed to chrysalids in 

 the ground, and as our correspondent says, appear 



Female. Male. 



as brown millers, which, after a brief existence in 

 the winged state, and after depositing their eggs, 

 disappear— having finished their course, and pro- 

 vided for the perpetuation of their kind. 



raising roots on grass earms. 



Brother S., of Roxbury, intimates that he thinks 

 I should do well to substitute carrots as one of the 

 rotation field crops instead of the potato. I think 

 it would be a mistake to do so. 



There are so many different circumstances and 

 conditions in the cultivation of the soil that one 

 theory or practice is not applicable to all. There 

 is the market gardener, the fancy ftirmer, the silk 

 gloved theorist, retired perhaps from some success- 

 ful speculation, and sometimes a person with a 

 very limited amount of land largely supplied with 

 labor. Even the successful practices of either of 

 these classes would be very irrelevant to the mass 

 of farmers in a grazing district. It will not do for 

 us to cultivate our farms as I see it stated Horace 

 Greeley does his, at an expense of four or five times 

 what the products might be bought for in market. 

 We must cultivate to a profit. True, some of us 

 cultivate too much for the present profit. In stir- 

 ring the soil, the first object should be the prepai-a- 

 tion of the land for an abundant hay crop. That 



