PLAGUE OF CATERPILLARS.

Shannon News, 31 March 1922, Page 3

PLAGUE OF CATERPILLARS.

EIGHT ACRES OF OATS DESTROYED

To have a flourishing crop of eight acres of oats completely destroyed is a hardship that might make any farmer rebel against the fates. This has happened to Mr Narbey, of Gladstone road, whose crop was cleaned up witnin three days by a plague of caterpillars. Yesterday our representative visited the scene and viewed the de sclation wrought. Not a whole beau of corn remains, in fact, nearly every one has disappeared entirely with par. of the stalk and all the surrounding leaves. The caterpillars are literally in millions—large dark coloured giub; over an inch long—and the astonishing feature of the thing is the rapid ity with Avhich they work. Mr Narbey first noticed them on Saturday. On Tuesday afternoon the crop was worth nothing. During the day the grubs do not assert themselves very prominently on account of the ever present menace of large' flocks of starlings, but at night, Mr Narbey says, they feed hungrily.

The manager of the Central Development Farm, Mr McCulloch, took an opportunity of looking at. the destroyed crop also. Though such a thing is unusual in these parts he says that it is not so in Canterbury. Of the origin of the pest he could say r nothing, not being an entomologist, but he knew that the caterpillars travelled overland. It was unfortunate for Mr Narbey that his crop lay in their path. In Canterbury agriculturists had not been able to exterminate the pest, but they had always managed tc localise its depredations by digging a deep furroAV round the affected area. It was found that Avhen the caterpillars moved on they fell into the furrow and their fate was sealed. ~