WORMING, 439 
while the other injures the leaf without endangering the 
plant. A little plaster sprinkled around the hill sometimes 
checks their progress, yet we have never found any remedy 
that would hinder their depredations very much. The plants 
should be kept growing as soon as transplanted, which will 
be found the better method, as they will soon be too large for 
the cut worm to — 
injure them much, 
if at all. 
The “horn worm” 
feeds upon the finest 
and largest leaves. © 
They are not found 
as often on the 
top leaves—especi- 
ally those growing 
on the very highest 
part of the stalk, as 
they prefer the ripe WORMING TOBACCO. 
leaves and those 
lower onthe plant. The horn worn, if large, eats the leaves 
in the finest part of them, frequently destroying half of a 
leaf. They leave large holes which renders the leaf worthless 
for a cigar wrapper, leaving it fit only for fillers or seconds. 
In Cuba the tobacco plant is assailed by three different kinds 
of insects—one attacks the foot of the leaves; a second the 
under side; a third devours the heart of the plant. In 
Colombia the following are the great enemies of the tobacco 
plant: A grub, named canne, which devours the young 
buds; the vrosca-worm, which commits its depredations in the 
night only, burrowing in the ground during the day; the 
grub of a butterfly, called by the Creoles palometa ; a species 
of scarabeeus called arader, which feeds on the root of. the 
plant; and a species of caterpillar* which is called in the 
* Wallace says of worming tobacco in Brazil: ‘The plants are much attacked by the cat- 
erpillar of as ins mothe which grows toa large size, and would completely devour the crop 
“unless carefully picked off. Old men, and women, and children are therefore consta 
employed going over a part of the field every day, and carefully examining the plants leaf by 
Jeat till the insects are completely exterminated.” 
