THE ARMY-WORM. 15 
the as yet unsettled region in the far north, and people going 
there to cut wild grasses for hay came back very much dis- 
gusted, for instead of finding grasses they found multitudes 
of such worms. As some of the descriptions given by the 
newspapers would fit almost any crawling thing in nature, 
Mr. Pettit, the assistant, made a trip to Northfield on July 
20th, to ascertain the real character of the worm and to see 
the extent of its depredations, as well as what means were 
necessary to stop their ravages. In this special case the 
army-worms were found in large numbers covering an area 
of from four to five square miles near the city, and in scat- 
tered patches over at least twenty miles in all directions 
from it. Upon some farms they were so numerous and de- 
structive that it did not pay to harvest the crop, while on 
other farms one-quarter to one-half of it was destroyed. 
The grain being almost ripe, the greener portions of 
the fields contained the largest numbers of such worms, 
though they were also quite numerous in the other parts of 
the field. In some cases the oats were already cut and 
shocked; this did not, however, stop the depredation of 
these worms, for they climbed the shocks and destroyed all 
accessible grain in them. As a general rule the worms com- 
menced their destructive work about seven o’clock in the 
evening, and continued it until morning. As stated by the 
assistant, the general direction of the moving armies was in 
most cases toward the north. Mr. Geo. Lyman had a large 
field which was completely destroved; to protect his unin- 
jured grain in other fields he plowed five ditches between the 
uninjured ones, turning the furrows toward the advancing 
worms, and in this manner prevented the worms from reach- 
ing the fields not yet invaded. These ditches stopped very 
large numbers of the army-worms. The same plan was fol- 
lowed by a number of other farmers, and whoever adopted 
it had good results. 
In a number of other places where the plants were al- 
ready nearly mature, or were badly rusted, only the husks 
were green, and these were greedily devoured by the cater- 
pillars, thus exposing the immature kernel. As is usual the 
army-worms had already done most of the damage before 
