24 PKOFITABLE FARMING. 



food from the soil into the leaf, since the leaf is full beyond its capacity to take more. 

 Slow decadence of the stalk's vitality now sets in, and, following the economic law 

 of nature, it begins at once to return to the soil, by capillary absorption, the 

 surplus elements not needed to mature seed for the perpetuation of its kind. If 

 there are no seeds to fill, as in topped tobacco, it sends up the requisite nourish- 

 ment through its instincts for that purpose, and then begins to slowly absorb the 

 filling of the leaf, and belting the main stem and laterals as described above. 



The same rule applies to the cutting of tobacco that applies to the cutting of 

 clover, hay and timothy, or any other kind of provender. If the grasses are cut 

 over-ripe, or after reabsorption has returned the oils and albuminoids to mother 

 earth, they cure up woody and lifeless, and are rejected by stock of all kinds. If 

 cut while in the flower, when all the plant cells are surcharged with saccharine and 

 other constituents belonging to their nature, they are fixed by curing, and are 

 soft, waxy, flavory, and sweet, making foods of the highest standard of their 

 kind. Wheat, oats, corn, and other grains suffer deterioration from over-ripeness 

 or remaining too long unharvested, as every farmer knows. 



CUT-WOEMS AND BUD— WORMS. 



The cut-worms are troublesome only during the early stages of plant-growth, 

 wnen they crawl from the ground during the night and cut off or devour the 

 small plants. Clover lands and such as have borne a heavy crop of weeds the 

 year previous are the favorite haunts of the cut-worm-. On such, it is sometimes 

 almost impossible to get a stand owing to the extensive depredations from this 

 nocturnal insect. No remedy has been found, except to hunt diligently for every 

 marauder and kill him on the spot. 



The bud-worm, so called from its habit of selecting the buds of the plants to 

 feast upon, while scarcely so numerous as the species heretofore described, inflicts 

 for their numbers more damage than the horn-worm, because they eat the small 

 tender leaves full of holes and utterly ruin them — a small worm destroying often 

 more than half the leaves on the plant. Like the cut-worm, the bud-worm must 

 be searched for and killed — being easier found, as his lurking place is always ia 

 the bud. 



*- ^». ^ ^^^^ where worming and suckeiing are going on ; turkeys are seen assisting In the former Drocefis 

 4» they are expert worm-catchers. ' j s i mo luxmer prooesB, 



