RED 



is covered with hoar froft ; and often from feeding in the 

 oat-er(hcs about tlie beginning of the autumn, when the 

 young oats are Ih-ong. It is thought here to be readily 

 obviated by allowing a fmall quantity of hay fo as to coun- 

 teraft the great watcrinefs of the turnip ; the quantity of 

 half a pound or even lefs in the courfe of the day is be- 

 lieved to be quite enough for each fhccp in this intention. 

 It is likewife fufpefted, that clover, ftubble, and folded 

 land, are produAive of it in wet weather or moilt feafons. 



Red Weed, in Botany, a name given to a plant common 

 in the Bermudas, and fome other places ; and called by our 

 firft travellers to that part of the world, the Summer IJlancl 

 ''red weed. Its berry is of a fine red colour, and affords a 

 tinfture little inferior to that of cochineal, and pofl'efling 

 all its virtues in medicine : the only misfortune of this, 

 and fome other very fine vegetable colours, is, that they 

 fade foon. The juice of the fruit of the opuntia, or 

 prickly pear, is as fine a dye as can be procured from the 

 cochineal; but it will not ftand ; the infedl feeding on this, 

 however, we find affords a colour of the fame nature that 

 will ftand. The fruit of the red weed is in the fame man- 

 ner liable to be eaten by infects as that of the prickly pear ; 

 and it is worthy u trial, whether the colour obtained at 

 fecond hand from thofc infe&s, will not ftand as well as the 

 cochineal does, and whether the infefls may not be pro- 

 pagated in a fufficient abundance to ferve the markets in 

 the fame manner. Phil. Tranf. N° 40. 



Red Weed is alfo a provincial term, Cgnifying the 

 round fmooth-headed poppy, a pernicious weed in corn- 

 fields. See Weeds. 



Red Worm, in Natural Htjlory, the name of an infeft 

 very deftruftive to young corn crops. The following de- 

 fcription of this worm has been given by Mr. W. Baker : 

 after obferving, that he has often heard of the havoc 

 which red worms make in young wheat, barley, and oats ; 

 and in fome few writers upon huflsandry has read of them, 

 but never faw them till May 1764 ; when, to his great mor- 

 tification, in a few days they deftroyed almoft totally nine 

 acres of his> vs'heat, for he did not reap above half a barrel 

 per acre ; and that the ingenious M. de Chateauvieux fpeaks 

 of an infeft, which is certainly of the fame kind, if it be 

 not the very infeft which he has now under confideration ; 

 and in noticing the lofs fuftained in wheat crops, fays, they 

 found in it many little white worms, which afterwards be- 

 came of a chefnut colour. They poft themfelves between 

 the blades, and eat the ftems. They are ufually found be- 

 tween the firft joint and the roots ; every ftalk which they 

 attacked grew no more, but became yellow and withered. 

 And the fame misfortune happened to them in the year 

 1732. The infefts appeared about the middle of May, 

 and made fuch havoc, that the crops were almoft deftroyed ; 

 Stillingflcet, alfo, in the fecond edition of , his Mifcel- 

 laneous Trafts, fpeaks of an infeft, which is probably the 

 fame as in Suflolk and in fome parts of Norfolk, where 

 the farmers find it their intereft to encourage the breed of 

 rooks, as the only means to free their grounds from the 

 grub, from which the tree or blind-beetle comes, and which 

 in its grub ftate deftroys the roots of corn and grafs to fuch 

 a degree, that he has feen a piece of pafture l.md where you 

 might turn up the turf with your feet : he adds, that Mr. 

 Matthews, a very obferving and excellent farmer of War- 

 grove, in Berkfhire, told him, that the rooks one year, 

 whilft his men were hoeing a turnip field, fat down in a 

 part of it, where they were not at work, and that the crop 

 was very fine in that part, whereas in the other part there 

 were no turnips that year ; though M. de Chateauvieux 

 defcribes this worm as being firil white, and afterwards be. 



I 



RED 



coming of a chefnut colour, he has carefully fought them 

 at different periods during the pait year, but always found 

 them of the fame chefnut colour, never varying in any par- 

 ticular except that of fize, which he finds to be the cafe at all 

 fealons in which he has feen them ; and he obferves, that the 

 infett fpoken of by Stillingflcet as a grub, whit'/., he fays, 

 dettroys corn and grafs, induces him to believe that it is the 

 fame infeft (though the report which he relates from Mr. 

 Matthews feems to contradift it), becaufe he has obferved 

 that the red or chefnut worm never appears voluntarily 

 upon the furface ; but when the earth is turned up, 

 either with plough or fpade, the rooks or crows are very 

 bold in their approach to pick them up, a circumftance 

 which, he owns, has in fome degree abated his enmity to 

 thefe birds ; he therefore never aeftroys or frightens them 

 off his land whilft he is ploughing it ; but when he fows, 

 when the corn rifes, and when it is ripe, he deftroys or 

 banifhes them as well as he can, becaufe the mifchiet which 

 they do at thefe times is intolerable ; he has alfo obferved 

 his lucern to decay in its tops' foon after it lias be^n up ; 

 and upon examining the roots hi.- has found the red worm 

 which had cat them off ; and that, in faft, this infeft feems to 

 be every where in Ireland called the red worm, but by fome 

 of the Englith writers, who have fpoken of an ii.feft which 

 deftroys the corn in the mam/ r already mentioned, which he 

 thinks undoubtedly the fame, it is calif d a grub, by others the 

 large maggot, and the rook worm, becaufe the rooks eat it. 

 Thefe worms are about half an iiich long, and about one- 

 tenth of an inch in diameter ; they are jointed in their 

 fkins, and are of a very firm texture : they have many 

 ftiort legs, two fmall black fpecks, which appear to be 

 their eyes ; and two fmall points fpringing from their heads, 

 with which, he believes, they eat the corn, and which in 

 that work, he apprehends, aft like forceps : and all that 

 he has feen of this fpecies are of a bright chefnut colour. 

 For this reafon, he ftiould conceive it would be more de- 

 fcriptive to call them the chefnut-worms. When they are 

 expofed to the air, by turning up earth which is infefted 

 with them, they will very foon cover themfelves again in 

 the foil, which they are very capable of doing by the 

 ttrength which their make gives them, although they ap- 

 pear to be a fluggifh infeft, and have not the advantage of 

 a (limynefs upon their fttins, which the common large creep- 

 inrr worm has, which enables that inoffenfive worm to pene- 

 trate the earth, and get under timber and ftones with eafe. 

 The red worm, immediately endeavouring to cover itfelf from 

 the air, is certainly, he thinks, from natural inftinft, as it will 

 foon die when expofed to the air, as will appear by the ex- 

 periment, N° 10, mentioned below. 



It is further ftated, that thefe worms deftroy wheat, bar- 

 ley, oats, and lucern, while in an infant ftate, in the months 

 of March, April, and May. Late fown barley and oats 

 they will deftroy as late as June. He has not yet expe- 

 rienced that they deftroy any other crops. The mifchief 

 done by them is in dry weather. Rain fufficient to pene- 

 trate the ground makes them defift fi'om deftroying the 

 corn ; and he fuppofes every thing elfe which they at any 

 time injure. They eat wheat off juft above the crown of 

 the roots ; barley and oats in the fame place, and alfo 

 higher up, upon any part of the ftem which is below the 

 furface of the earth. And thefe worms feem to abound 

 more in ground which is lightly tilled, than in fuch as 

 hath been well tilled ; but in lay ground they feem to be 

 more numerous than any where elfe : and the fields upon 

 his farm in which he has found them, are wetter than 

 other fields where they are not ; whether that circumftance 

 contributes to their increafe, he cannot fay ; but the fol- 

 lowing 



