This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 Excerpt: ... or army caterpillar (Mamestra ewingi). In its native state it feeds on grasses and other low-growing plants. When attacking cultivated grains, however, it sometimes renders the crop quite useless, as its habit is to nip off the ears of barley and wheat. It climbs up the grain till it comes to the head, which it ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 Excerpt: ... or army caterpillar (Mamestra ewingi). In its native state it feeds on grasses and other low-growing plants. When attacking cultivated grains, however, it sometimes renders the crop quite useless, as its habit is to nip off the ears of barley and wheat. It climbs up the grain till it comes to the head, which it usually nips off, so that a badly-attacked field may sometimes be completely stripped; sometimes it eats the outer portions of the heads of wheat or oats, but nearly always the part attacked is just below the head. Occasionally these grubs travel about in immense armies, usually all moving irregularly in one direction. When travelling from the bush into a field of grain they can be prevented from attacking this if a deep furrow is ploughed at right angles to their line of march, with the sod turned away from it, and a deep hole dug in the furrow at intervals. The grubs, on coming to the furrow, fall into it, and instead of climbing up on the other side will crawl along the furrow till they come to one of the holes, and in these holes they can be destroyed in millions. Or large numbers can be destroyed by rollers, or by heavily poisoning a strip of grass which they must pass. There are many insects in various parts of the world known as army caterpillars or army worms. At Scottsdale, on one occasion, the grubs after destroying a crop of Algerian oats, travelled to an orchard, where they bit off the apples at the stem when they were about the size of walnuts. Sometimes they only partly bit the stem through, so that the apple grew on for a time, but afterwards fell. They also bit off many leaves. They never seemed to eat the leaves or apples, but only the stems. The grub is of a greyish colour, with several dark stripes on the back and sides. When full...
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