542 
ANNUAL KEIORT OF NEW-YORK 
2. INDIAN CORN. 
AFFECTING THE STALKS. 
Covering the young stalks by night at or near the surface of the ground; a 
thick cylindrical pale dull colored worm an inch or more in length. 
Cot-worms, the larvae of different species of dgrotis, (plate 3, fig. 1, 2 and 6.) 
Common as the cut-worm is in all parts of our State and 
country, our knowledge of it is still very imperfect. I remem¬ 
ber in my boyhood it was a subject of discussion in my neighbor¬ 
hood, whether if these worms were cut in two, both ends did not 
live, thus producing two worms where but one existed before. 
Though at this day I suppose no such absurd idea is anywhere 
entertained, yet with regard to the transformations of these 
worms, and their economy generally, very little authentic in¬ 
formation is possessed. This clearly appears from the following 
enquiry from West Haven, Ct., July, 1855, addressed to the 
Albany Cultivator (third series, vol. iv, p. 115). “Will some 
of your readers inform us how the Cut-worm is produced— 
whether from the miller, or whether they bring forth their young 
like the rabbit or any of the animal creation 1 I would like to 
know also whether one kind of soil more than another, or 
whether different manures, coarse or line, have a tendency to 
increase their numbers. Their name is legion with us, this sea¬ 
son. More than thirty have been found around one cucumber 
hill. Whole fields of cabbages have been cut down in a night. 
The subject of their production has been up for discussion, but 
no one seems to know, nor is there any author that we have 
that throws any light on the subject. I have had some experi¬ 
ence relating to their production, but it is so at varience with 
my previous ideas that I want more light before publishing it ” 
Whether the cut-worm is more numerous in one kind of soil 
than another, I am unable to say. The soil of my own neigh¬ 
borhood is a gravelly loam, and in this the cut-worm is common. 
I presume it is equally common in sandy and clay soils. In one 
instance, at the bottom of a bowl-shaped hollow, where the soil 
