85 
Artificial Remedies. 
In the garden or a small area there is probably no better'method of 
preventing the Cut-worms than to hunt and kill them wherever their 
work is noticed, but in fields, the way fields are cultivated in Illinois, 
this is impracticable. Where this will not do fall plowing will 
probably be found the most effective of any artificial means, for the 
following reasons: 
It is thought that nearly all the species pass the winter in the 
ground in a torpid state, rolled up in a little cell that it has formed 
in the soil, though probably the Variegated Cut-worm is at this time 
a chrysalis. By plowing late enough so that these are turned up after 
the weather is so cold that they cannot secure a place of protection 
again before winter sets in, they will be exposed to the inclemencies 
of the weather which will prove their destruction, and this will be the 
same whether in the worm or chrysalis state, for it is not really the 
freezing that hurts them, but the freezing in connection with the 
loose wet soil, and this will kill the chrysalis as quickly as it will 
the w r orm or caterpillar. Besides breaking up their cells and thus 
mingling the worms and chrysalids with the dirt, many of them 
would be brought to the surface and w r ould be eaten by birds. 
In all the cases in the extracts wdiere remedies have been given fall 
plowing has been the principal one resorted to, and there seems to be 
only one exception to this. Dr. Boardman states that they were most 
destructive on pieces of meadow land that had been broken up in the 
fall and planted in the spring. There are two probable reasons for 
this : first, the plowing may have been so early that the worms would 
have a chance to form anew retreat if disturbed, but, what is quite 
probable, many of them w r ere not disturbed on account of the tough 
sod not being broken up. 
If the remedy is to be in the fall the question may naturally arise, 
where may we expect to find them the following year. Has soil any¬ 
thing to do with it? Nearly all the writers quoted seemed to have a 
theory on that point which is probably more or less substantiated by 
experience, but a comparison of the notes will make it evident that 
soil has but little, if anything, to do with the question, even when we 
consider it as wet or dry, high or low. Still, we must not go too far 
here for the wetness or dryness of the season has much to do with their 
work, but of that hereafter. 
What was on the land the fall before has more to do with the pros¬ 
pect of injury from Cut-worms in the spring than anything else. By 
•a comparison of the notes they have been found to be injurious on 
'“timothy and clover stubble newly broken,” “limited to sod corn,” 
“worst on stubble land,” and by stubble land any farmer in this section 
of the country knows is meant a growth of weeds in the fall after the 
grain is taken off, that would equal a meadow for luxuriance. “On 
weedy and grassy lands,” “meadow lands that were broken up,” etc., 
but here is far enough for our purpose. 
From this it may be inferred thatland that is kept clean during the 
summer and fall will not be troubled with Cut-worms the following 
-season,and a treatment to fall plowing will not be necessary for the 
