The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-04-13
HOW TO DESTROY
 PESTS KNOWN AS GARDEN CUTWORM
Arsenical Sprays Should Be Used for Extreme
 Outbreaks.

Washington. D. C., April 13.-To- II matoes cabbages sweet potatoes, let
 tuce. and other truck plants, especial
 ly those which are started under glass
 and transplanted, are subject to seri- ous injury by cutworms. These pests , appear sometimes in great numbers
 in the spring and early summer, and freqently do severe injury before their rayages are noticed
 | Their method of attack is to cut off the young plants at about the surface
 of the ground, and as these caterpil-
 lars are of large size and voraclous
 feeders, they are capable of destroy Ting many plants in 8 single night
 frequently more than they can de- vour. ar
 Every year these insects, working
 generally throughout the United
 States, have destroyed hundreds of thusands of dollars worth of crops.
 By the timely application of reme-
 dies, however as has been demonstra- ted by entomologists of the U. S. De-
 partment of Agriculture, they readily
 can be controlled, even over consider
 able areas. The usual method of
 control is by the use of poisoned baits. E Take bushel of dry bran, add one pound of white arsenic or Paris green, and mix it thoroughly into mash with If $ gallons of water in which has been
 stirred half Q gallon of sorghum or | other cheap molasses (Arsenic and Paris green are deadly pOisOns. Han
 dle them with great care.)
 This amount will be sufficient for the treatment of about four or five
 acres of cultivated crop. After the mash has stood for several hours,
 scatter it, in Jumps about the size of a marble, over the fields where the 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 before night, which is the time when the ! cutworms are active. Apply second
 time, if necessary. Keep children | live stock and chickens away from , this bait.
 . When 'cutworms occur in unusua . abundance, which happens locally :, and sometimes generally, they ex Il haust their food supply and migratt ] to other fields. This they do literall, 1 in armies, assuming what is called ] the army worm habit. At such time it is necessary to treat them the same I as army worms. While the method l which have been advised are valuable 1 in such \cases, they may be too slov ] to destroN all the cutworms, and othe! I methods must be employed.
 These include trenching, ditching the blowing of, deep furrows in ad :: vance of the travelling cutworms t. a. trap them, and the dragging of log n or brush through the furrows. If tn
 trenches can be filled with water, tn
 addition of a small quantity of kero
 sene, so as to form a thin scum o1
 the surface, will prove fatal to\ tn = cutworms.
 . In extreme cases, barriers of fenc r boards are erected and the top = sneared with tar or other sticky sub stances to stop the cutworms as the -' attempt to crawl over.
 7 In extremely severe attacks by cut
 worms on choice plants there is some ' times no opportunity to prepare tn >' poisoned bait. In such cases an ar
 senate of lead spray will answer quit
 as well. In one instance a parsley f1el :, was sprayed with four pounds of ar 'l senate of lead to 50 gallons of water o this killed all the cutworms, wherea y if they had been left alone for da 'I or two longer the field probabl n would have been destroyed. The re '' suit was perfect stand-the bes
 ever made by the grower In thi II case five applications were necessar, ~ Clean cultural methods and era y rotation are advisable, as are also ia blowing and disking, to prevent re currences of cutworm attacks. Man ~ cutworms can be destroyed where D. is possible to overflow the fields, pa1 ticularly where irrigation is practicet