The Thousand-Legged Worm. 
QaaJL --~—*'» ' 
Messrs. Luther Tucker A Son— Enclosed plense 
find a sample of a small worm that has takon possession 
of my gardon for tho last three years, almost totally 
destroying everything of vegetable kind. In the 
winter season they disappear or go deep in the ground, 
and early in tho spring commence on the winter rootsi 
Ac., and devour thorn until the young vegetables com¬ 
mence to grow, when they attack them and complete¬ 
ly destroy all but some of the most hardy, which seldom 
get to perfection. The large strawberry, when near 
ripe, will often contain as much as fifty of them. They 
will make a small hole to enter, and devour the heart 
from the fruit, and so long as there is room for a worm 
they will go in. The young cucumber, radish, beans, 
onions, Ac, all fall a prey to them. I call them wire 
worm, but not knowing them, I am uncertain whether 
correct or not; and as there are no others in tho vioini- 
t.y, I would like to know what they are, or if anything 
can be got to destroy them. I have tried lime, ashes, 
Ac., but without success. The only way I oan find to 
destroy them is, when the weather is warm, lay boards 
round tho walks in the evening, when early in the 
morning they will be under the boards by thousands 
—then I apply boiling water. 
Please say in The Cultivator, if there is any known 
name for them, and anything that will destroy them. 
James Adams. Armstrong Co., Pa. 
Answer to tHe aljove by Dr. Pitch. 
Messrs. Tucker A Son —The worms from Mr. 
Adams, are a centipede or “thousand-legged worm,” 
pertaining to the genus Julus , in the Apterous or 
wingless order of insects. "Unlike the great mass of in¬ 
sects these undergo no transformations, but always 
remain in the worm-like shape in which they hatoh 
from the eggs. And whether these specimens are the 
young of one of our larger species, or a minute species 
now in its mature state, I am unable to say, having 
never yet carefully investigated the group. 
One of the latest and best authorities respecting 
them says, “ ces soul des animaux inofensifs” —these 
are harmless animals. They are most fond of dark, damp 
situations ; hence Mr. Adams finds them congregated 
under boards lying on the ground Scarcely a buck¬ 
et of water has been drawn from my well, this present 
season, that did not have one or two of these worms in 
it. Crawling from their retreats in the crevices of the 
stones of the well, they lose thoir foothold and drop into 
the water, the coldness of which renders them torpid 
and unable to crawl out. I must procure a trout and 
place it in my well to keep the water cleansed of these 
worms. Though should one of them chance to be 
swallowed in drinking, I doubt not the gastric juice 
would destroy and digest it This, however, is an ex¬ 
periment in dietetics which I do not care about trying. 
As to the food of these worms, it is no doubt vege¬ 
table substances which are in a diseased and decaying 
state. It is in old rotten logs in the woods that we al¬ 
ways meet with our largest species named Julus ame- 
ricanus by Beauvois, and marginatus by Say, which 
is three and a half inohes lung, and over a quarter of 
an inch thick, of a lurid, grayish, olive oolor, with a 
red ring to each segment of its body, and usually just 
one hundred pairs of foot. Aod those suiall centipedes 
in our gardens and yards appear to be most numerous 
where deoaying vegetable substances abound. Where 
a radish has been boroi by the larva of tho radish fly, 
where a cabbage root is clumpy or otherwise diseased, 
I have notioed these worms crowded together upon the 
affected spot, evidently to feed on the partiolesof semi- 
putrid matter they there find, and very probably pro¬ 
moting and extending the disoase by removing this de¬ 
caying matter, and thus exposing a fresh surface to the 
action of the atmosphere. And I presume the straw¬ 
berries, oucumbers, Ac., mentioned by Mr. Adams, 
were in the first instance wounded by ants or other in¬ 
sects, and wero thereby rendered attractive to those 
centipedes. Several years since, a physician of tin 
town, now deceased, from finding these worms ver 
numerous in decaying potatoes, and unaware that 
they occurred abundantly on all other decaying roots, 
at onoe jumped to the conclusion that they wore 1 
‘ the veritable cauae of the potato disease, and in the 
J excitement at that time prevailing, his c •mmunications 
to the pr^ss on this subject attracted a somewhat wide 
notice. But everything known of these worms, impress 
es me with the belief that they never attack living, 
healthy vegetation, and eonstquently do not cause dis¬ 
ease, though they may aggravate and extend it where 
it is already commenced. Asa Fitch. Salem } N. Y. 
sly rain enough to lay the dust for a 
are nearly as low as they were in the 
iried up, and the prospect for a mid- 
Utica. Our friend Hon. W i J. Bacon 
1 if my own and family’s health per- - i, 
trying to get some of the LebamA 
;s, a very intelligent and promising 
f our comity papers in behalf of the 
of our county people to come out. We 
are) between the middle of September 
sably keep many away. 
Cattle Prohibited. 
the act just passed by Congress to 
2 diseases among the cattle of the United 
luse of Representatives of the United 
bled: 
rid hereby is prohibited. And it shall 
Treasury to make such regulations as 
effect, and to send copies of them to 
d to all officers or agents of the United 
id, that when the President shall give 
hat no further danger is to be appre- 
ectious or contagious diseases among 
nd cattle may be imported in the same 
es December 11, 1865. 
EDWARD McPHER£ON, Cleric. 
• 
able to License Dutv, and also 
in on Gross Receipts. 
snt, Office of Internal Revenue, ) 
Washington, Sept. 29, 1865. J 
I have to say that, as agricultural 
to the managers or others, but rather 
iral interests of the country, they are 
