A Noise Annoys a Caterpillar

      Caterpillars! They descended as a ravenous plague on the Catskill Mountains of New York State in the years 1897-9. Green worms, or tree caterpillars the farmers called them, as they watched in stupefied impotence while their fruit and maple trees were transformed into bare branch skeletons by the voracious pests. Nothing, it seemed, could save them from ruin. Nothing the scientists could suggest made any difference. Where was the Pied Piper when you needed him most?

     Then, at midday 1st June 1899, Mrs Arthur Martin, a farmer's wife in Greene County, went forth to call in the hired hands for lunch. Eschewing the use of vocal chords, she blew on a conch shell horn. Suddenly, something unexpected happened. While the echoes of the blast were still ringing, the ground under her feet was covered with caterpillars, apparently dead. Astonished, she blew again, and the tree above her again began raining caterpillars. Experiments were tried with other trees (presumably, after lunch) with the same result. Bedsheets spread under the trees quickly filled with dead or stunned green caterpillars, and were consigned to the bonfire. Within three hours, the farm was declared free of pests. Also within hours, the news was flashed around the world. Other farms in the Catskills started to get into the act the very next day. 

By ten o'clock on the morning of June 2nd the town of Ashton was a veritable Bedlam let loose. Conch-shells and fish-horns sounded on the morning air; the boom of bass drums and the shrill shriek of fifes shattered the silence on all sides; and the roar of a bass horn and several trombones awoke the echoes far and near. Mr. Thomas A. Gerald, a wealthy farmer, hired boys to climb the trees and beat drums among the branches. This proved so effective that worms were literally gathered up by the bushel and cast into the fire.

     Experiments in other towns established that the caterpillars were not killed by the sound waves, but merely rendered unconscious. Most effective were the conch, bass drum, and trombone. Gun shots were of mediocre value, the human voice none at all. On the other hand, a British biologist tried the effects of playing a piano on  spiders. It was reported that Beethoven pleased the spiders, but Wagner upset them!

       Not long afterwards, the caterpillars - those that were left - went into their chrysalid stage, but the farmers declared that they were ready to do battle with them the following year. Unfortunately, I have no information as to how that played out.

Reference: N. Lawrence Perry (Jan. 1900), 'Mrs. Martin's cure for caterpillars', The Wide World Magazine vol. 4, pp 253-6