From Farm Spies, How the Boys Investigated Field Crop Insects by A. F. Conradi, and W. A. Thomas; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916; pp. 146-165.
WINDFALLS OF CORN
MR. GEORGE WHITNEY lives in the foothills in the northern part of South Carolina. He is now a very old man, but until he was seventy years old he farmed. His farm contains one hundred and forty acres and is known far and wide as the Whitney farm. If you ever visit that neighborhood, you will hear people tell of the wonderful crops that were made on that farm in the days when old man Whitney was young.
One day Frank Sellars and his father started in an automobile to visit Frank’s uncle, who lived near Mr. Whitney. About twelve miles from home one of the tires deflated and they had to stop to repair it. It happened directly in front of Ed Cherry’s house and Ed came out to talk to Frank’s father. When everything was in readiness to go, Frank’s father said, “Have you made good crops this year, Ed?”
“Yes, I have had good luck this year,” Ed replied.
“Does that field across the road there belong to you?” Mr. Sellars asked, looking at an old cornfield where the stubble were left, at the same time cranking his car.
147“”No, indeed not,” answered Ed with disgust. “If it were mine, it would not be lying there with all the stubble on it; it is a regular breeding cage for windfalls next year.”
Fig. 60. — “It it were mine it would not be lying there with all the stubble on it.”
Calling good-by, Frank and his father drove on.
Frank was in deep thought, and when they came to a smooth road where his father was not so busy guiding the car, he asked, “What did Ed mean by saying that the stubble-field across the field from his house is a breeding cage for windfalls next year?”
“I don’t know,” his father answered, “I have thought about it and wish I had asked him.”
148Frank continued, “He said if it belonged to him it would not be lying there as it is. It is nearly Christmas time. What do you suppose Ed would do to that field this time of the year?”
“I suppose he meant that he would plow it and plant something in it,” Mr. Sellars continued, “but he talked as if the field lying there the way it does, made it a breeding-cage; that is what I do not understand.”
They arrived at the home of Frank’s uncle about noon. After dinner Frank told his uncle what Ed had said about the old corn stubble-field across the road from his house, but his uncle did not seem to know what he could have meant. “In this section we consider it bad practice to leave the corn-stubble on the field over winter — in fact we do not allow our fields to lie bare over winter; we always put cover-crops on. We are satisfied that such fields as the one Ed was talking about make vermin for the following season, but I don’t know about windfalls. It is worth while to think about it, because you know Ed is a smart fellow and a ‘crack’ farmer,” Frank’s uncle explained.
Frank’s father then spoke up, saying, “I be old George Whitney knows if anybody around here does.”
“He very likely does, but whether he would tell us or not is another question,” said Frank’s uncle 149 with a smile. “You know he is a peculiar man,” he added.
“Frank,” said his father, “you can go and ask Mr. Whitney, if you want to.”
“All right,” Frank answered, and started down the road to Mr. Whitney’s home.
Frank’s father and his uncle sat on the front porch watching Frank going down the road. Frank’s uncle said, “I am not sure whether the old man will answer his questions; let me see, Frank is twelve years old now and Mr. Whitney has never been much of a man with boys. There is no better farmer for miles, and he would do anything for you in trouble, but he is peculiar. When you ask him a question he may answer it or he may not, or he may give you a good scolding. He and I are good friends, and when he finds out that Frank is my nephew, he may be real nice to him.” Mr. Sellars wondered how this visit might come out.
Frank was a bright, cheerful, winning boy, with a smile for every one he met. When he arrived at Mr. Whitney’s home a large collie came running towards him, barking; he spoke to the animal and they became friends immediately. Mr. Whitney was sitting on a chopping-block under the lean-to of the old barn.
“Good evening; is this Mr. Whitney?” Frank said.
150“That is who I be, sonny,” he answered, and his look betrayed his curiosity as to who that boy might be.
The boy spoke again: “That is a lovely big dog you have, Mr. Whitney. I like dogs and he is about the finest fellow I ever saw.”
The frankness with which this was said pleased the old man, and he became interested in his young visitor. “Yes,” the old man explained, “he is all you say; I raised him myself; he was born in that old kennel you see over there under that tree. His mother came from South Carolina and was as fine a dog as you or anybody else ever saw. What may be your name, sonny?”
“My name is Frank Sellars and my father and I are visiting Fred Collins. Mr. Collins is my uncle,” said Frank, wondering in the meantime what the old gentleman meant by saying that the dog came from South Carolina, the State in which he was now living.
“So you be visitin’ your uncle Fred Collins. Well, Fred is a mighty fine man and a good neighbor. Have a seat, sonny. Git that box leanin’ thar against the tree and bring it over here and set down.”
When Frank went for the box he could but admire the tall and stately elm against which the box leaned. When he came back he said, “What a beautiful elm that is, Whitney. There are none prettier on 151 the Capitol grounds at Washington. I looked at them last summer when we were visiting there.”
Mr. Whitney looked at him and remarked, “So you visited Washington; that must have been nice.”
“Yes, it was,” said Frank, “and we also had a boat ride to Mt. Vernon, where we visited the tomb of Washington.”
“Visited what?” Mr. Whitney asked quickly.
“The tomb of Washington; Washington’s grave.” Frank repeated.
“Well, well, well, why that is news to me. I did not know he was dead. When did he die?”
Frank, not sure whether this was ignorance or second childhood, answered hesitatingly, “Why, Mr. Whitney, he has been dead a long time.”
“That is strange,” the old man replied, “I saw a paper only about a month ago and it said that Washington was dressed up for the inauguration. How came you to visit him; do you know him?”
“We visited Uncle John; he is a congressman,” Frank replied.
“So be I!” Mr. Whitney asserted dogmatically, hitting his right knee with his fist. “I am a congressman and a Wilson man. Them two are the biggest men who ever lived. Even the Americans say so.”
Frank thought to himself, “Mr. Whitney may be a very good farmer, that is, he may know how to 152 make good crops, but I would call him a very ignorant man.” He wondered whether there would be any use to ask him about what Ed had said.
Like every boy, Frank was never at a loss for words nor schemes for getting what he wanted.
“Mr. Whitney,” he said, “you have a very nice farm. How many acres are in it?”
“One hundred and forty,” Mr. Whitney replied promptly. He said nothing more, and Frank saw that a few more well-planned questions might lead to the one he wished to ask.
“You know, Mr. Whitney,” Frank continued, “when father and I came down the road this morning we saw several cornfields that had the stubble left on them. I do not see any fields like that on your farm.”
“Of course you don’t; I never allow it.” Mr. Whitney said curtly.
“I have to keep on asking questions to get him to talk,” Frank thought. “There was a corn stubble-field across the road from Mr. Ed Cherry’s place and if nothing is done don’t you think it will breed windfalls?” Frank asked this question not knowing what he meant by it, but he thought it would at least bring him nearer to the question he wished answered.
“Yes, it will; yes, it will,” the old man managed to say, but not another word.
153“He surely is a hard man to get started, but I am going to try again,” he said to himself.
“Isn’t it funny, Mr. Whitney, that old stubble left on the field during the winter breeds windfalls?” Frank asked again.
“Not at all, sonny, not funny at all when you understand it,” and again he stopped.
“I do not understand it, Mr. Whitney,” Frank replied; “is it a disease that breeds in the stubble, do you suppose?”
“I suppose nothing about it, sonny,” Mr. Whitney replied. “I know what it is. It is a worm that stays in the bottom of the stubble throughout the winter, and in the spring a candle-fly comes from it. In the spring after the corn has a good start these candle-flies lay their eggs on it, and from these eggs come the worms that bore into the corn-stalks. 154 This, sonny, weakens them, and during heavy winds, or even rains, in July, the stalks break down and the farmers call them windfalls.”
Fig. 61. — “It is a worm that stays in the bottom of the stubble during the winter.”
Frank looked at the old man with admiration. “Though short, it is one of the best speeches I have ever listened to in my life,” he said to himself. Just a moment ago Frank had regarded him as the most ignorant man he had ever met, and yet he could in a few well-framed sentences tell what his father and uncle did not know. Mr. Whitney had now become talkative, and he told Frank many things about farming that he had never known and which he felt few people knew. This mountaineer, so ignorant about the country in which he lived, surely understood better than anyone else in that section how to make crops.
Before leaving, Frank said, “Mr. Whitney, if I knew as much about farming as you, I would farm all my life.”
“Sonny,” said the old man, patting him on the head, “and if I knew as much as you know now I would be twice as good a farmer.” Frank stared at him surprised, but the old man continued; “I am an ignorant old man, while you are young and have life and opportunities before you. When I was a boy of your age I had no chances to get an education. I am making al living and pay my honest debts, but I am too ignorant to enjoy life. 155 My two boys went to college and I know what I missed.”
Frank went down the road to his uncle’s home in deep study. He told his father and uncle everything Mr. Whitney had said. When he retired to his bed that night he repeated to himself, “And I thought that he was an ignorant man.”
When Frank woke up the next morning he knew that he had been dreaming about candle-flies. He dreamt that he had been in the field across the road from Mr. Ed Cherry’s house pulling up corn-stubble, and that in the bottom of nearly every root he had found a worm. “That was a funny dream,” he said.
After breakfast he told his father that he was willing to give everything Santa would bring him if he could go into the stubble-field he dreamt about, and examine the roots. “I don’t see any stubble-fields around here,” he said.
Uncle Fred down by the shed had heard Frank, and called, “No, Frank, you won’t see any near here because Mr. Whitney has folks trained around here not to allow stubble on the fields during the winter, but Sam Hoyt down by the river takes no notice of it, and if you go to his place he will show you all the stubble you want to see. Sam is a nice fellow, but he does not believe what Mr. Whitney says about stubble causing windfalls. If you find any of those worms on his place, I wish you 156 would show them to him, and maybe he will then do something about it. His farm is only about a half mile beyond those woods. You follow the main trail, starting at the bars, and when you come out at the other side of the woods you will see a white house and an old log-barn. That is his place.”
Frank started, and soon arrived at Mr. Hoyt’s home. He told Mr. Hoyt his name, where he came from, and what he came for.
“Haw, haw, haw, haw,” Mr. Hoyt laughed. The laugh was so hearty and the face of the big fat man so good-natured that before Frank knew it he was laughing with him, as hard as he could.
“Sure, you can examine my stubble,” Mr. Hoyt continued, “but if you can find the windfalls in them, then you are a good one. You seem to have gotten some of old man Whitney’s notions; haw, haw, haw.”
Frank and Sam went to the field and pulled the first stubble they came to. Frank split it with his pocket-knife, and there were two large yellowish worms in the root. “Great Tecumseh!” Mr. Hoyt exclaimed, and stared at the worms a long time. Frank kept on pulling and splitting stubble, and in nearly every one he found one or two worms and in some even three. He explained to Mr. Hoyt what Mr. Whitney had told him about these worms making candle-flies, and Sam answered with a loud 157 ‘guffaw,’ and said, “The old gentleman dreamt that or maybe he read some fool story somewhere.”
Frank tied together all the stubble he had pulled and split and started for home. When he was almost in the center of the forest on the old trail he suddenly stopped and said to himself; “I am calling these bugs by the wrong name. I remember now in our reader in school it says that young insects are larvæ and that the young of butterflies and moths are called caterpillars. I recall that my teacher told us not to call them worms. All right, I am glad that I remembered that, and so I will call them larvæ or caterpillars after this.”
When he returned he said to his father and uncle, “I have the caterpillars, or worms, as Mr. Whitney calls them. He was right so far, and I am going to find out whether they will make candle-flies. I am going to bury the roots of the stubble in that old flower-bed and put a mosquito net over them so that the chickens will not scratch them up.”
“I have a big box here with a wire screen on it. I used to keep hens in it. You can turn that over them; it beats mosquito netting,” his uncle said.
“What are you going to do with them when we go back home?” his father asked.
“I will take them with me and bury them at home,” Frank replied.
158“All right, I have window-screening that you can use,” his father said.
When they started back home Frank had his corn-stubble packed in the rear of the car, and when he arrived there he buried them back of the woodshed. Several days afterwards he came and told his father, “Bringing the stubble from Uncle Fred makes me laugh.”
“Why?” his father asked.
“Because I can find all I want around here,” he answered and they both laughed.
In the spring when the corn was being planted none of the caterpillars had changed to moths, and this puzzled Frank very much. At last when it seemed to him that he could wait no longer he uncovered the stubble and examined them. To his surprise he found caterpillars in only a few of them, but after a somewhat closer examination he found a number of chrysalids. “You know I scratched my head and wondered what became of some of the caterpillars,” he said to his father, “but I understand it now; they are changing to chrysalids or pupæ and that means that they will soon become moths; hurrah!”
Fig. 62. — “He found a number of chrysalids.”
He kept on watching, and when the corn was large enough to cultivate they had not yet become moths. 159 He began to think that something was wrong after all. “I know that they are not dead because they wiggle a little when I handle them,” he said.
Corn was about five inches high when his first moth came out, and one by one the others followed.
Fig. 63. — “When his first moth came out.”
They were of a smoky brownish color. “They must be laying on the corn in the field by this time and I am going to the field to see about it,” Frank said. He watched several days; and, seeing no moths, he became discouraged but said nothing to anyone about it.
One evening after sundown his father asked him to get a wrench which he had left at the far end of the farm. It was about dusk, and Frank walked slowly up the driveway to a certain point, then crossed the cornfield to the place where the wrench had been left. To his delight he discovered some of the moths hovering about the corn. “They are laying eggs now, and I am coming here to-morrow to watch them.”
The next morning he came early, and although he stayed till noon he saw not a single moth. He went home disappointed and told his father about it. 160 His father said, “Maybe they lay their eggs at dusk only.”
In the evening Frank went back to the cornfield and, sure enough, the moths were there. He marked the places on every stalk where he had seen a moth, and the next morning he found the tiny eggs on the leaves. After a few days the eggs hatched and the little caterpillars crawled down the blades of corn into the bud. He noticed that they ate small holes into the buds, and when later those leaves unfolded there were rows of round or irregular holes across them.
“I do not understand how the rows of holes get in those leaves,” Frank said.
Fig. 64. — “I do not understand how the rows of holes get into those leaves.”
“That is quite simple,” his father answered, and then rolled up a piece of paper and punched one hole through it with his lead pencil, and when he unfolded the paper there was a row of holes. His father then explained, “The young corn bud consists of leaves folded up, and if you make a hole through 161 the bud as the caterpillars do, a row of holes will show when the little leaves unfold.”
When the caterpillars were about half grown, they left the bud, traveled down the stalk, and ate into it near the ground. When they became full-grown each cut a round opening through the outer wall of the stalk, and after plugging it with chewed pith from the inside, crawled to a small chamber prepared in the pith and transformed into a chrysalis. About two weeks later the moths came from the 162 chrysalids or pupæ and left the stalks through the openings they had cut and so carefully plugged when they were caterpillars.
Fig. 65. — “Left the stalks through the openings they had cut.”
When the corn was tall enough to tassel and silk, the moths laid eggs on the bottom leaves. The little larvæ bored into the stalk, and like their ancestors, chewed the pith. When the summer winds were blowing Frank noticed that many stalks had been burrowed so that they broke off near the soil.
“Now I know what windfalls are. I wish every farmer knew what caused them.” He then went to his father and asked, “Won’t the windfalls make corn?”
“No,” his father replied, “the milky corn on the windfalls sours and rots.”
The larvæ kept on growing in the fallen stalks or in the stubble, and when winter began, unlike their parents, they bored to the tip of the root and there they stayed during the winter, undisturbed by snow, sleet, or wintry winds. The following spring they changed to pupæ, and two weeks later the smoky brown moths appeared to lay their eggs on the new corn-plants.
Frank said that he counted as many as a dozen larvæ in a single stalk of corn.
“That is nothing,” John Drake retorted; “I have seen as many as fifty holes in a stalk.”
Frank answered, “That is because they have sometimes 163 come out of the stalk and go in at another place; so there may often be more holes than larvæ.”
John, looking at the larvæ Frank had in his hand, said: “Those are not the same kind that work in my corn during the summer. They look different.”
Frank explained to him, “In summer and early fall they are white, dotted with black,
Fig. 66. — “In summer and early fall they are white dotted with black.”
but when winter comes they change to a cream yellow color, and this leads some people to believe that they are different caterpillars.”
Fig. 67. — “But when winter comes they changed to a cream color.”
“I want to know how to kill them,” John said.
“We ought to do as they do in the Whitney section,” said Frank. “All the farmers around there destroy the corn stubble in the fall. They never allow them to stay in the fields over winter because they say that they breed windfalls.”
“How do they destroy them, do you know?”
“There are several ways,” Frank answered. 164 “Some harvest the corn, then plow out stalk, root and all, rake it in heaps and burn. Others plow out the stubble, rake them and haul them to the barnyard. Then again some farmers just plow them up and let them lie on the surface. Mr. Whitney, one of the best farmers living in that section, plows his stubble under with a large disk plow and then sows oats and vetch on the land. He says it is the proper thing to do, not only to prevent windfalls but to destroy many other pests as well. He says that his way of sowing the land for winter keeps the soil in good condition because it holds moisture better, does not wash away, and holds the plant-food. ‘Always plow your corn and cotton land deep in the fall and sow a cover-crop. If you cannot do the deep plowing, sow the cover anyway, and never let your corn-stubble stay on the field.’
“Mr. Whitney says, ‘Because they do these things in the Whitney section they have no trouble with windfalls.’ The farmers around there work together and Mr. Whitney says, ‘That is what counts.’ ”
The following year all the farmers in Frank’s neighborhood agreed not to leave the stubble on the cornfields over winter, and the next year they had very few windfalls.
One day when Frank was visiting his uncle Fred, Mr. Whitney came in and he and Frank had a long 165 conversation about good farming. When they parted Frank asked him, “How did you know so much about the worms that make windfalls?”
Mr. Whitney replied, “Some years ago I got a bulletin from Washington; I studied it and it has helped me very much.”
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