STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
863 
ARMY WORM. MOW MULTIPLIED AND SCATTERED ABROAD. 
Now, what multiplies this insect, and occasionally sends it out 
over the country, away from its accustomed haunts? 
I think the weather of last year and this, being in such striking 
contrast as the two seasons have been, gives us the clue by which 
to solve this mystery. 
Last year, the spring and summer till the middle of July, was 
the driest in my own vicinity, that I ever knew. The famine 
caused in . Kansas by the extreme and protracted drouth there, 
is fresh in the recollection of every one; and throughout the 
Southwestern States the crops were stated to be a third short 
of their usual average, from the same cause. 1 suppose over the 
country generally the season partook of this character. Hereby, 
the swamps being made dry and the marshes unusually low, this 
insect had an unlimited extent of feeding range, and thus became 
greatly multiplied. 
The spring and early summer of this year was exactly the 
reverse of last year — unusually wet, and the water high in all 
our streams. Hereby the swamps have all been overflowed, and 
this insect has been drowned out of them. The moths or millers 
on coming out of their chrysalides, found it was impossible for 
them to get to the roots of the grass there, to deposit their eggs. 
They were obliged to forsake their usual haunts and scatter 
themselves out over the country, the incessant rains making it 
sufficiently wet everywhere to suit their semi-aquatic habits. 
Thus going forth in companies, they alighted in particular spots, 
and there dropped their eggs; and the result is sufficiently well 
known. 
More briefly expressed my view is this — a dry season and dry 
swamps multiplies this insect. And when it is thus multiplied, a 
wet season and overflowed swamps drives it out from its lurking 
place, in flocks, alighting here and there over the country. But 
on being thus rusticated, it finds our arable lands too dry for it; 
and immediately on maturing and getting its wings again, it flies 
back to the swamps, 'whereby it happens that we see no more of it. 
Such is the most plausible opinion I am able to form, after the 
little thought I have had time to give to this subject. Very pro- 
bably, hereafter, when the facts becomo more fully observed, 
some modifications of what I have now stated, may be required ; 
but that the view 1 have expressed will be found to be substan¬ 
tially correct, I am well persuaded. 
