STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
809 
CUT-WORMS. THEIR HABIT OP SEVERING YOUNG PLANTS. 
protection. In order that this fall plowing Should be efficacious, it is 
obvious it should be deferred until near the close of the season, when the 
worms have withdrawn themselves downwards and are lying torpid and 
inactive in their winter retreat. If the turf under which they are reposing 
be then turned up to the surface, they will be incapable of crawling away 
into any new quarters, and the sudden freezings by night and thawings by 
day to which they will be alternately exposed, we are confident must destroy 
a large portion of them. 
When the spring has returned and we are engaged in making our gar¬ 
dens, a Cut-worm is occasionally turned up to our view in digging and 
working in the earth there ; and if grass has been permitted to grow and 
form a turf around the roots of currant bushes or elsewhere, upon digging 
up and rooting out this grass, we are quite sure of finding a number of 
these worms nestled among it, indicating to us that grass more than any¬ 
thing else furnishes them with the covert and food which they desire. 
Although we thus find these Cut-worms lying in the soil of the garden 
early in May, it is not until the close of that month and the beginning of 
June that they begin to attract our notice by the injury they do in our 
gardens and cornfields. It is when they are grown to about two-thirds of 
their full size that they commence the work which renders them so perni¬ 
cious to us,—that of severing the young, tender plants. Previous to this, 
during all the first period of their lives, as has already been stated, they lie 
concealed under the ground during the day time, feeding there upon the 
roots of plants, and only venture out by night to feed upon the green vege¬ 
tation above ground. Although in England they arc called surface grubs, 
I discover they are not restrained to the surface of the ground, but mount 
up the stems of young cabbages and beans and eat portions of their leaves. 
But, about the commencement of June, the nights have become so short and 
the days so long, and the worms arc now grown to such a size and their 
appetites have beoome so ravenous, that they are forced to a most singular 
change of their habits. The insipid roots of plants fail to yield them the 
amount of nourishment they require during the eighteen hours of daylight. 
They must either stay out to feed upon green herbage during the daytime, 
or they must, so to speak, set their wits to work, to devise some way by 
which they can get this herbage down under the ground so that they can 
there feed upon it. We accordingly see them adopting the curious expedi¬ 
ent of cutting off tender young plants in order to draw them into the 
ground, whereby they may feed upon them during the long hours of the 
day. Is it not wonderful, that such sluggish, stupid looking creatures as 
these worms are, should have the • intelligence to perform such a feat as 
this—cutting off the plant, to enable them to get the end of it down into 
the ground, so that they may cosily lie there and feed upon it in safety— 
gradually drawing it in, more and more, until by the close of the day the 
whole of the plant and its leaves are consumed; a feat strikingly analogous 
to that for which the beaver is so renowned, cutting down small trees and 
drawing and swimming them away to build a dam with them. Surely we 
should admire this loathsome-looking worm for such a skilful performance, 
