COT-WOnitS. EARLV NOTICES AND RECORDS or TBEtR iKJORtfiS. 



sence of this worm in our country, the labor of the husbandman is fre* 

 quently doubled to obtain from his land a crop either materially diminished 

 in amount or of a less valuable kind from that which he would be able to 

 harvest were it not fur this enemy. The attention of the farmers of our 

 State was this past season prominently directed to the rearing of flax, and 

 a breadth of land was given to this crop far exceeding what has ever 

 before been assigned to it. But soon after the young flax appeared above 

 the ground, these Cutworms began their depredations, feeding upon and 

 •wholly consuming the small tender plants to such an extent that many 

 fields had large patches in them which were eaten perfectly bare, whilst 

 in others the crop was totally destroyed. 



Many of our injurious insects are new pests which have but recently 

 been observed in our country. But these Cut-worms appear always to 

 have' been here, depredating upon and despoiling the cultivated crops in 

 centuries gone by, the same that they are now doing. Before European 

 settlers arrived upon this continent, the cornfields of the Indians are said 

 to have been ravaged at times by these worms, this being of all others a 

 disaster to them of which they were most fearful, and one which they felt 

 themselves wholly powerless to avert, their only resort for protecting their 

 fields from this calamity being that indicated in the lines of the poet; 

 "Draw a magic oircio round them, 



So that neither bligli' nor mildew, 

 Neitiior burrowing worm nor insect. 



Shall pass o'er the mngio circle." 



And this is well known to have been a casualty of frequent occurrence all 

 along since the soil of our country has been cultivated by civilized men. 

 In those diaries which have occasionally been kept in difierent parts of our 

 land by persons who have been curious to preserve a record of local inci- 

 dents of interest, we are sure to meet ever and anon with the statement, 

 "Indian corn was this year greatly injured by the worms," "The season 

 -was wet and cold, and the worms made extensive ravages on the Corn," 

 and other entries of the same purport. From one of these sources we learn 

 that a century ago there had been a distressing drouth in 1761, followed 

 by an unusually long and severe winter and a late spring. " When at last 

 the corn was planted, millions of worms appeared to eat it up, and the 

 ground must be planted again and again. Thus manj' fields were utterly 

 ruined." (Flint's Second Report, Mass. Board of Agriculture, p. 40.) It, 

 however, may have been the Wire-worm wJiich occasioned at least a por- 

 tion of the destruction here related, for usually when one of these worms is 

 numerous the other is so likewise. It is unnecessarj' to mention other years 

 in which we have little more than the mere fact stated that these corn 

 worms were very injurious, 



In addition to such manuscript mementoes, the published allusions to these 

 pests date far back. Upwards of seventy years ago, when the old Agri- 

 cultural Society of our State was first organized, in a circular which the 

 Society issued, containing inquiries upon different topics on which informa- 

 tion was solicited, the first query respecting insects Was, " Is there any 



