PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 249 



sti'oycd. It is not a very invitiiif^ thing- to a delicate appetite to find the 

 first bite of a roasting ear has been taken by one of these worms. 



Mr. Theodore Ilolt, who has spent several years among the freedmen on 

 the islands of South Carolina, said that he took several bushels of corn from 

 here, thinking to grow a better variety. He docs not think an ear of it 

 ever ripened. It was all destroyed by the worms mentioned in Ihis letter. 

 They generally commence at the end of a row and eat through to the other 

 end of the cob. lie says the worm is more like that known here as the 

 spindle-worm than it is like the cut-worm. The only remedy that he has 

 found is to use varieties that grow very thick husks well closed over the 

 point of the ear. lie thinks no Northern variety of corn will answer at 

 the South. 



Sour Plants — How to Get Rid of Them. 



Mr. C. G. Brown, Ahnepee, Lenawa county, Wisconsin, propounds the 

 following question to the Club : " What is the best method of ridding the 

 soil of sour-grass, vinegar-plant or sorrel, as it is called by these names, 

 There arc many farmers troubled with it, and a great many ways and plans 

 have been tried?" 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — Have you tried dressing the land with caustic 

 lime, at the rate of tliirt}' bushels of the powdered lime, fret^hl^' slaked, to 

 the acre, spiead upon the surface with wheat seed, and harrowed in at the 

 same time ? Have you tried wood ashes, a pint upon each hill of corn or 

 potatoes ? Have you ti'ied deep fall plowing, so as to turn up some of the 

 strong clay of the subsoil, and letting that pulverize in winter, and then 

 seeding it to timothy and clover in the spring ? Afterward, top-dress the 

 grass every autumn with manure, free from sorrel seed, or dress it wifh 

 lime, ashes, or finely-powdered clay — the debris of an old brick-yard is 

 good — and if some of these remedies won't cure your land, you may as 

 well emigrate. 



A Mistake in the Germ. 



Mr. Daniel Curtis, Farmington, AVisconsin, gives a detailed account of 

 a sprout that he found growing out of the dead body of a grub, which ho 

 appears to believe had produced this vegetable growth. lie is undoubt- 

 edly mistaken, notwithstanding he could not find any seed. Similar mis* 

 takes are often made. The pest of flax growers, called dodder, appears to 

 have sprouted out of the flax- stalk, where it is impossible that a seed could 

 have been concealed, and it has often seemed a mystery to those who have 

 examined it. Investigation shows that the seed is in the earth, that it 

 grows a fine fibre which inserts itself into tlie flax, and then the fibre dies, 

 while the plant, in its natural form, grows and draws its sustenance from 

 the flax. The growth of a jilant out of the body of the grub is no more 

 mysterious than the growth of the flax parasite. 



Squirrels as Friends of the Farmer. 



Mr. S. R. Duven, \\'oburn, Massachusetts, writes : " I wonder if farmers 

 arc aware that the little striped squirrel makes food of the chrysalis from 

 the caterpillar's cbcoon ? I have seen him at it several times within the 

 last two year.s, and also learned that he was a meat-eater, for food or m- 



