INSECTS. 221 



many hills nearly eaten up by them. I never handled one. 

 They looked so nasty that I thought if I took one up it would 

 come all to pieces. 



I have also had on my potatoes, and perhaps more last year 

 than usual, a bug that is square in shape, with corners stick- 

 ing out. It is quite impossible to tell which is the front and 

 which the back side. What those are I do not know. 



I also have another bug, which plagues me more than any 

 thing else, especially on the Davis Seedling. Tiiey eat up the 

 vines entirely clean if I do not have a large piece. It is a 

 striped bug, about as heavy again as the common bug that eats 

 down our cucumbers, and the stripes are of a little darker 

 color. 



Mr. Smith. — This striped beetle is the one that has been 

 mistaken for the western potato beetle so often, and the dis- 

 gusting worm or bug is the larva or grub of the same insect. 



Mr. White. — I presume so. I get rid of these three bugs 

 in this way. As soon as I discover them I take plaster of 

 Paris and go over my field when the dew is on and sprinkle it 

 on the vines. The application of the plaster once or twice 

 prevents their doing much injury. 



Professor Johnson. — You hatve all read the advertisement 

 of tlie Grafton fertilizer. Tiie owners of a quarry in New 

 Hampshire, originally worked as a gold mine, failing to make 

 their excavation pay by the yield of gold, have found they can 

 make it pay better by grinding the rock and selling it as a fer- 

 tilizer. It is carbonate of lime and magnesia chiefly. Ac- 

 cording to the owners they have certificates of its wonderful 

 fertilizing effects; and also (what is very remarkable) that it 

 is a specific against insects of all kinds. I had seen the ad- 

 vertisement of this fertilizer; it struck me as rather curious, 

 and it occurred to me that I had met with some facts which 

 might assist me in finding an explanation. About the time I 

 thought of it a relative of mine from Northern New York 

 paid me a visit. I had a few plants in my garden, the tops of 

 which had been nearly eaten up by these little plant lice. I 

 rather admire to see them work, especially when I see the ants 

 come up and milk them. You know entomologists say that 



