858 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
ARMY WORM* ITS APPBARANCK IN 1790 AND 1817. 
is unknown, for not the carcass of a worm was seen. Had it 
not been for pumpkins, which were exceedingly abundant, and 
potatoes, the people would have greatly suffered for food. As it 
was, great privation was felt, on account of the loss of grass 
and grain. 
He adds, that in 1781, eleven years afterwards, the same kind 
of worm appeared again, and the fears of the people were greatly 
excited, but they were few in number. 
Twenty years after this most noted time of its appearance, it 
occurred again through the southern part of New England, as we 
learn from Webster, who says : In 1790, millions of the black 
worm noticed in 1770, reappeared in Connecticut, appearing at 
Hartford and Norwich, and disappearing in these places at the 
same time. They were very destructive to the grass and corn, 
but their existence was short, all dying in a few weeks. (Web¬ 
ster on Pestilence, i, 272.) 
Again after an interval of twenty-seven years, it re-appeared 
in 1817, as I find from an old file of the Albany Argus, which 
gives the following item from Massachusetts : 
1817. Worcester, May 22d. We learn that the black worm is 
making great ravages on some farms in this totvn, and in many 
other places in this part of the country. Their march is “ a dis¬ 
played column,” and their progress is as distinctly marked as the 
course of a fire which has overrun the herbage in a dry pasture. 
Not a blade of grass is left standing in their rear. From the 
appearance of the worm, it is supposed to be the same which 
usually infests gardens and is commonly called the cut worm. 
We are informed that about forty years ago the same kind of 
worm made great destruction in ploughed land, among spring 
grain, but particularly in fields of flax. (Albany Argus adds 
to the above as follows :) This black worm is also destroying the 
vegetation in the northern towns of Rensselaer and eastern sec¬ 
tion of Saratoga. Many meadows and pastures have been ren¬ 
dered by their depredations as barren as a heath. It appears to 
be the same species of worm that has created so much alarm in 
Worcester county, but we suspect it is different from the cut 
worm, whose ravages appear to be confined to corn. 
Since 1817, we have had no return of these worms, here at the 
North, until this present year, an interval of forty-four years. 
Its career this year, so far as it has been mado public, is briefly 
