Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 June 1874 — A Trap for Cut-Worms. [ARTICLE]

A Trap for Cut-Worms.

There is no trustworthy remedy against cut-worms except actual catching and killing them. Any application to the soil sufficiently strong to injure or discommode them would certainly destroy the crop, and all the recommendations to use salt, carbolic acid, and other similar substances may be set aside as useless in practice. ’We have trapped them in various ways, beneath chips, stones, and in holes punched in the ground with a smooth, round stick, such as an old broomhandle. But unfortunately in these cases they are caught only after they have spent

the night in deetroying the young cabbages or corn. Finally we hit upon the expedient of surrounding the hill or plant with a ring of holes close together, and in this way caught a great many of the pests every night Making so many holes with a single stick is a slow process, but with the following-described contrivance the whole tjng of holes is made at one stroke: An old shovel handle is split for about a foot with a fine saw. The split portion is soaked in boiling water.to soften it and the ends are inserted into holes made in a hoop or ring of wood two inches wide, one inch thick, and eight inches in diameter. In the bottom of the ring there are inserted a number of pieces of an old broom-handle projecting two inches and placed not more than a quarter of an inch apart. When this is pressed into the earth around a hill of corn or a cabbage plant, it leaves a circle of smooth, round holes two inches,deep with compact sides and bottoms. The cut-worms fall into these holes In their nightly rambles and may be found and destroyed in the morning.—American Agriculturist.