Connecticut western news., 1875-07-23
Another Pest.

The army worm, which caused such havoc a few years ago, has this year ap- peared in immense numbers in Maine, and the fruit crops will be very small in consequence. From the time the young worm hatches until it folds itself up to build it's cocoon the worm marches stead fly onward, devouring the leaves as it goes. Sometimes the line of9battle is unbroken for several miles, in othor places the invaders march in columns of varying width, leaving strips of country untouched, or visited only by a few skirmishers or stragglers.
 The worst depredations of the worm are in the northern part of Oxford county and in Franklin county. There the line of march was unbroken, and no efforts of the farmers could stay their progress or appreciably diminish their numbers. In Perue, Milton township, and Franklin plantation they covered the limbs of trees to Q depth of several inches, presenting the appearance of bees when swarming. They covered houses which lay in their path so densely that one could not tell the material of which the houses were built. Farm houses of dazzling white color-which abound in New England were reduced to 8 dull brown, without spot of paint visible from ridgepole to foundation. The people scraped them down from their houses, barns and trees with boards fastened to long poles, and buried them in trenches; but millions came to supply their places. Farmers plowed trenches around their orchards, finding that the worms could not crawl up their sides the yielding loam giving way under their c. H11o 41n &,rn1 ,ohn would be found filled with writhing would have passed over on the backs of progress fences and roadways would be entirely covered by them, and in one instance train of cars on the Grand Trunk railway was stopped by them in the town of Paris, and an extra engine could be started. At first every effort was made to stay the progress of the pest, but it was soon found that all labor to that end was virtually wasted. Few orchards on the Sandy river in Franklin county escaped. In Philips, Strong, and Farmington-where there are many fine orchards-there will be absolutely no fruit. A farmer in the town of Strong determined to save his apple trees, if possible, and he fought the army worms from their first appear ance. He made trenches, scraped the worms from the trees. and sprinkled them with hot soap suds and kerosene Inch by inch he retreated before them, and finally concentrated his attention upon dozen valuable young trees near his house which were just coming into bearing. He will raise two or three bushels of apples this year. Few farm CTS continued the contest after the first week; it was hopeless from the start. I look from the window at which I am writing, says a correspondent, out on @ farm which in a good year produces three hundred or four hundred barrels of first quality merchantable apples and more than one thousand bushels of fruit of inferior quality. It will not produce twenty bushels of apples of all kinds this year. Fortunately this is not the year for large apple crop in Maine, the orchards producing abundantly only ill alternate years but it is expected that the ravages of the worm will be hun dredfold greater next year than it has been this year, as no method has yet been devised for destroying the millions of. cocoons with which trees, fences, stone walls, and the roofs and caves of houses and barns are filed.
 The army worm is little more than an inch in length. It has nine white spots of an oval form on it's back, which is of a black color. Below these is a narrow stripe of orange, and below this, on the sides, 8 wider stripe of bluieh green. The under part of the body is brown. It has ten legs, with which it travels with great rapidity either forward or backward.