The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1912-04-17
HOW TO COMBAT
THE CUTWORM

WASHINGTON, April tomatoes,
cabbage, sweet potatoes and other
vegetables and garden plants, and es-
pecially those which are started I'M
der glass and transplanted, are sub
iect to serious injury by cutworms.
They appear sometimes in great num-
bers in spring and early summer
and frequently do severe injury be-
fore their ravages are noticed. The
method of attack is to cut off the
young plants at about the surface of
the ground and as these insects are
of large size and voracius feeders
they are capable of destroying many
plants in a single night frequently
more than they can devour. During
the past two years these insects, work
ing generally throughout the United
States, destroyed hundreds of thous.
ands of dollars worth of crops. BY
the timely application of remedies
however, it was demonstrated by the
Department of Agriculture through
field agents and others of the Blu
reau of Entomology engaged in the
investigation of insect injurious to
truck crops and sugar beets in some
of the principal trucking regions, not
ably in tidewater Virginia, in South
ern Texas, in the vicinity of Rocky
Ford, Colo, in Southern California, in
the vicinity of Sacramento, Cal, in
Stark County, Ind, and in some otn-
Ell regions, that these insects can be
readily controlled large areas being
successfully treated The usua' meth.
Cd of control is by the use of poison
ed BATS
Take a bushel of dry bran, add
pound of arsenic or Paris green, and
mix it thoroughly into a mash with
S gallons of water, in which has been
stirred half a gallon of sorghum, or
other cheap molasses. After the
mash has stood several hours, scatter
ii in Jumps of about the size of a
marble over the fields where injury
is beginning to appear and about the
bases of the plants set out. Apply
late in the day so as to place the
poison about the plants over night.
which is the time when the cutworms
are active. Apply a second time if
necessary.
When cutworms occur in unusual
abundane which happens locally, and
sometimes generally, in some seasons.
they exhaust their food supply and
are driven to migrate to other fields.
This they do. literally IN armies, as
suming what is called the army-worm
habit. AT such times it is necessary
to treat them as we do army worms.
While the methods which have been
advised are valuable in such cases,
these remedies may be too slow to
destroy all the cutworms and we,
therefore, have to employ other me-
thods. These include trenching, ditch
ing, the blowing of deep burrows in
advance of the travelling cutworms to
trap them, and the dragging of logs
or brush through the burrows. If the
trenches can be filled with water, the
addition of a small quantity of kero-
sene so as to form a thin scum on
the surface win prove fatal. In ex-
IRENE cases barriers of fence boards
are erected and the tops smeared
with tar or other sticky substances
to stop the cutworms as they at
tempt to crawl over.
Clean cultural methods and rota-
ton Of crops are advisable, as also
fan blowing and disking. Many cut
worms can be destroyed where it i
possible to overflow the fields. This
Is particularly applicable where irri.
cation is practiced.
EORTN nME NEAnN nInI=H