Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1912-04-13
WORMS DAMAGE
GARDEN TRUCK
Robert M. McWade.

Bismarck Tribune Washington Bureau.
WASHINGTON, April l3-"What do
you know about the cutworms and
the damage that they do to sugar beets
and vegetables? How do you destroy
them?" These are knotty questions
shot at many of our agriculturists by
the astute secretary of the big depart
ments of agriculture, and he answers
them in such a clear easily under
stood manner that any farmer can
readily follow and profit by his sug-
gestions.
Tomatoes, cabbage, sweet potatoes,
and other vegetables and garden
plants, and especially those which are
started under glass and transplanted,
are subject to serious injury by cut
worms. They appear sometimes in
great numbers in spring and early
summer, and frequently do severe in
jury before their ravages are noticed.
The method of attack is to cut off
the young plant at about the surface
of the ground, and as these insects
are of large size and voracious feed
ers, they are capable Of destroying
many plants in a single night, fire.
quently more than they can devour.
During the past two years, these
insects, working generally throughout
the United States. destroyed hundreds
of dollars worth of crops BY the time
ly application of remedies, however,
it has been demonstrated by the de-
partment of agriculture through field
agents and others of the T. S. bureau
of entomology engaged in the investi-
cation of insects injurious to truck
crops and sugar beets in some of the
principal trucking regions, and in
other places that these insects can
be readily controlled, large areas be-
ing successfully treated.
''The usual method of control is by
use Of poisoned bats.
Take a bushel of dry bran, add
pound Of arsenic or Paris green, and
mix it thoroughly into a mash with
8 ga,.ons of water in which has been
stirred half gallon Of sorgum, or
other cheap molasses. After the mash
has stood several hours, scatter it in
Jumps Of about the size of marble
over the fields where injury is begin
ming 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 cut wqpms are
active. Apply second time ! neces-
stry.
when cutworms occur in unusual
abundance 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 il armies. as
Stunning what is called the army-worm
hHbit. 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 meth
DDS. L
These include trenching, di,ching,
the blowing of deep burrows in adj
vance 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 small quantity, of kero-
sene so as to form thin scum on the
surface will prove fatal. In extreme
cases, barriers of fence boards are
erected, and the tops smeared W.
tar, or other sticky substances to stop