212 PESTS OF GARDEN AND FIELD CROPS 
silk inclosed within the husk. They are especially destructive to 
sweet corn. 
On tomatoes they bore into the fruit and eat more or less of the 
pulp within. 
Cotton is attacked at the time that the corn in southern fields is 
_  Inaturing, and therefore is no 
| longer suitable for food. The 
| worms eat into the bolls. 
| Tobacco is subject to injury 
| at the same season, the larve 
eating into the buds and stalks, 
though in Florida the plants 
are attacked also early in the 
season and the leaves muti- 
Fic. 264.— Adult of the Corn Ear-worm. lated before they have un- 
Teo folded. 
The adult is a yellowish or brownish moth, expanding a little more 
than 14 inches. There are two broods in the North, and from four to 
sixin the South. The eggs of the first generation are laid on any avail- 
able food plant, depending on the section of country. Succeeding 
broods do the greater part of the injury. Winter is passed as a pupa 
in the soil, in a peculiar burrow constructed by the larva, which de- 
scends several inches, turns, and makes a gallery nearly to the surface 
of the ground for the use of the moth in emerging, and then retires to 
the bottom of the gallery to transform. 
One of the best means of control is fall plowing and cultivation, 
so as to break up the exit galleries in the soil. 
Prevention of attack by the later broods often is difficult. Early 
planted corn is more likely to escape injury. The same is true of 
cotton. On cotton, arsenical poisons are used with good results, 
usually applied dry. Strips of late corn planted among cotton after 
the latter is under way will come into silk at the right time to divert 
attack from the cotton. Cowpeas may be used in the same way. 
On tobacco buds an effective remedy consists in poisoning the 
worms with a mixture of corn meal and dry arsenate of lead, using 1 
