The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-10-08
FARMING IS
4 FAILURE.
CutWormsDestroy
Waimea Small
farms.
D. L. VAN DINE
TELLS OF THE PEST
Government Experts Have Just
Returned From Visit OF
Investigation.

Cut-worms are responsible for the
district, Hawaii, where they caused
also the practical abandonment of two
of the finest farms in the Islands.
Jared G. Smith, Special Agent in charge
of the United States Agricultural De-
partment in Hawaii, and d. L. Vanl
Dine, the Department Entomologist.
have Just returned from a visit to the
Waimea district where they began al
war of determination against the pests.
Speaking of the result of his investi-
cations Mr.. Van Dine said yesterday:
THE Waimea district, Hawaii, isl
we'll suited for farming as regards both
soil and climate. The rainfall is quite
sufficient for growth and irrigation
would seldom have to be practiced.
Nevertheless small farming, attempted
at various times, is failure. Messrs.
Long and Gyberson of California went
there at the beginning of the year 1901
and invested both money and energy in
vegetable gardening. In several in
stances they meet with partial success
but repeated failures drove them toI
finally abandon the hope of raising
products for market with profit. The
failure to produce anything in that sec
ton of the country, aside from the
grasses and sorghum, is due almost en-
tirely to the ravages of the cut-worms
or in native language the poka-worms.
These cut-worms, of which there are
several species here, are the young or
larvae of moths belonging to a great
family of insects known scientifically as
Noctuidae and commonly called owlet-
moths. These moths are night flying,
hence their name, and are often trou-
blesome about lamps, being attracted
by the light. They are sometimes at
tracted by lights and trapped and are
also attracted by sweetened bats hav-
ing a penetrating odor, like fermenting
syrup but in either case not in suf-
f1cient numbers to make it pay to use
either method as a practical means of
destroying them. Collectors often make
use of these facts in gathering the
moths for scientific purposes.
These pests are most serious in the
vicinity of grass lands, their natural
breeding place. A small cultivated
place in the center of any great area
not under cultivation is certain to be
surrounded by pests of one sort or an
other awaiting the oncoming of the
tender varieties which they find more
to their liking than the more or less
resistant hardy plants which they have
left In the subsection of any new
lands, especially where the area under
cultivation is small in comparison toI
the surrounding country, this difficulty
is always met. This is the case at
No he orIa CT on
ly of few acres situated in the CEN
ter of thousands of acres given over
to grass. In such a case even the ut
most precautionary measures and the
best of cultivation will not always
throw the balance in favor of the plant
and usually but a small per cent of the
products reach the table or the market.
One solution of the problem does pre-
sent itself and that is an influx of
farmers in numbers sufficient to cul-
tivate these large areas and all united
in making practical efforts to keep the
pest in check. The outlook at present
for such a solution of the problem
seems far off.
Sections of the country subject at
certain times of the year to seasons of
cold or extreme dryness do not suffer as
greatly from attacks of this nature
These places harbor as we'll as the pests
their natural enemies and knowing also
al what times to expect an onslaught,
we can, by precautionary measures,
check their destructive work. Here in
Hawaii the cut-wormS are present in
greater or lesser numbers throughout
the year and much of the time in num-
bers sufficient to make their presence
serious. In some instances the plants
do well when young but a brood of the
pests develops in time to destroy them
before they reach maturity. In other
cases the plants are eaten just after
they push their way from the SOIL
I'm the summer of 1893 Prof Koebele
sent to Mr.. B. 0. Clark, then Commits
sioner of Agriculture, two species of
Tachina flies, natural enemies of these
worms. They were distributed about
the island of Oahu and are reported
to have checked the cutworns at the
Wahiawa colony. There however the
area under cultivation is large as COM
pared with the surrounding uncultivat-
ed land and throughout the colony
more or less clean cultivation has been
practiced. The cut-worrns under such |
conditions would naturally be less in
number. The larvae or ''maggots" of
these flies develop within the body Of
the cut-worms and living on them de- |
stroy the cut-worms before they reach |
maturity Some of the paracitized lar
vac of the moths will be sent to Wal |
mea as soon as obtainable with the
hope that they will help to solve the
problem there.
1t is evident that on any large scale
precautionary measures cannot be
adopted. Several hundred acres can
not well be ditched or treated with in
secticides. But despite the great odds
in favor of the cut-worms much can
be done on limited area in keeping
them in check. The eggs are laid in
grass lands, weedy patches, or in fact
in most any low dense succulent yege-
tation. The necessity then for keeping
down and clearing away such vegeta-