Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1896 — THE ARMY WORM. [ARTICLE]

THE ARMY WORM.

Some of the Characteristics of This Great Pest of the Farmers. The army worm, which has now made its appearance in many States of the Union, is a species of caterpillar. It hatches from nn egg deposited by a nightflying moth. Like the moth, the caterpillar prefers the night for labor and ordinarily remnins quiet during the day. The hot sun is’distasteful to the worms, and they die if exposed to it for a considerable time. The moth that lays the eggs is nearly one inch long and is one and three-quarters inches from tip to tip of wing. The eggs are deposited in rows of from fifteen to thirty near the roots of grass and grain where they will be protected. More than 700 eggs have been found in the body of a moth when dissected. The worms hatch a week or ten days after the eggs are laid, the time depending somewhat on the climate. When their lives as caterpillars are ended they burrow into the ground and remain there •until spring, when trfey emerge as moths to lay eggs to produce more warms.r The army worm has appeared almost every year, according to the United rotates. Bureau of. Agriculture., Only occasionally, however,.b,ave they been numerous enough to do, scrimps damage to crops. In 1876 the'enf ire’west was overrun with the pest. So numerous were they that they stopped railroad trains. They crawled on the tracks in such numbers that the wheels of locomotive*(Were unable to obtain a grip on the rails. They also swarmed over the engines, disarranged the machinery, thronged the cabs and nnnoyed engineers and firemen. When they are once started nothing but death can stop them. A writer, in describing the ravages of the worm in the West in 1881, said that the sight, as a field of wheat whs being devoured, was discouraging, nud strong men turned away, nauseated, after-gazing on the slimy mass of wriggling worms. As they chewed the leaves a slight, crinkling sound could be heard. Within a few hours the grain was destroyed and the army took up Its march to other pastures.

Gen. Josiah Siegfried died at Pqttsonville, ,I’a., aged 06, from kidney trouble and nervous prostration.. Gen. Siegfried was one prpnpneut military meo; and philanthropists in the Stiite He Wgft the leading Republican politician's? HWwfIMU GeaiUr.