REMEDIES AGAINST CUT-WORMS. 449 



The only effectual remedy at present known has been 

 humorously described by Mr. Asahel Foote in the " Albany 

 Cultivator," and reprinted in the seventeenth volume of the 

 "New England Farmer." After having lost more than 

 a tenth part of the corn in his field, he " ordered his men 

 to prepare for war, to sharpen their finger-ends, and set at 

 once about exhuming the marauders. For several days it 

 seemed as if a whole procession came to each one's funeral, 

 but at length victory wreathed the brow of perseverance ; 

 and, the precaution having been taken to replace each foe 

 dislodged with a suitable quantity of good seed-corn, he soon 

 had the pleasure to see his field restored, in a good measure, 

 to its original order and beauty, there being seldom a va- 

 cancy in a piece of four acres." Mr. Foote's statement, 

 founded on an estimate of the time employed in digging 

 up and killing the cut-worms, and the increased produce 

 of the field, is conclusive in favor of this mode of checking 

 the ravages of these insects. , 



Mr. Deane states that he " once prevented the depreda- 

 tions of cut-worms in his garden by manuring the soil with 

 sea-mud. The plants generally escaped, though every one 

 was cut off in a spot of ground contiguous." He acknowl- 

 edges, however, that "the most effectual, and not a labo- 

 rious remedy, even in field-culture, is to go round every 

 morning, arid open the earth at the foot of the plant, and 

 you will never fail, to find the worm at the root, within 

 four inches. Kill him, and you will save not only the 

 other plants of your field, but, probably, many thousands 

 in future years." Mr. Preston, of Stockport, Pennsylvania, 

 protected his cabbage-plants from cut-worms by wrapping 

 a walnut or hickory leaf around the stem^ between the 

 roots and leaves, before planting it in the ground. The 

 late Honorable Oliver Fiske, of Worcester, Massachusetts, 

 says, that "to search out the spoiler, and kill him, is the 

 very best course; but, as his existence is not known except 

 by his ravages, I make a fortress for my cabbage-plants with 



57 



