332 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ANTS AS INSECTICIDES. 



A writer in the Boston Journal of Chemistry says he watclied Avith great 

 interest lust summer the work of a colony of black ants which attacked canker 

 worms on an elm tree in his grounds and was very much gratified at the 

 results. "Two processions of the ants," he says, " were moving on the trunk 

 of the tree, going up empty, the other coming down, each ant bringing with 

 him a canker worm, which he held fast in his mandibles, grasping the worm 

 firmly in the center of the body. Although the prey was nearly the size of the 

 destroyer, the plucky little ant would run down the tree in a lively way, deposit 

 its booty in its nest in the ground and instantly return for further slaughter. 

 There were at one time as many as forty coming down the tree, each bringing 

 along his victim, and doing the work with apparent ease." Extending his 

 observations, he noticed that the ants ran up the trunk and out on the limbs 

 and from thence on to the leaves of the trees, where the filthy worm was at 

 work, and seizing him with a strong grip at about the center of the body, 

 turned about with the squirming worm and retraced their steps. The worm 

 was dead by the time the ant reached the ground. If this work of the ants is 

 common they must prove valuable friends to farmers and fruit raisers, and 

 should be protected in every way possible. 



CABBAGE BUTTERFLY. 



Mr. Charles R. Dodge, while at sea recently, eighty miles off the coast of Dela- 

 ware, was surprised to observe a cabbage butterfly (Pieris rapa?) — and he thinks 

 a female — fluttering in the air just forward of the pilot-house. The hold was 

 open and it may have come from some of the vegetable crates stowed on the 

 main deck, but, whether it did or not, in these days of fast steam vessels 

 between our country and Europe, the incident illustrates how readily noxious 

 species may be imported, even with the utmost care to the contrary. 



STRIPED BEETLE AND SQUASH BUG. 



A correspondent of the New York Tribune says that for the little striped 

 beetle which comes in early summer there is nothing better than very dilute 

 Paris green or London purple, one part of the poison to twenty of flour, or one 

 tablespoonful of the poison to three or four gallons of water, and even then 

 put on with great caution. Very little will kill the beetles, while the plants 

 will not stand very much more. lie has no trouble to save his vines, squash, 

 melon, and cucumber, by use of these substances. He has, by intrusting the 

 making of the application to other hands, lost all of the vines treated. The 

 grayish black squash-bug is more difficult to manage. Gathering the eggs 

 and the old bugs early in the spring is laborious but sure if thoroughly done. 

 The bugs will crawl under pieces of boards laid among the vines, and may be 

 gathered and caught. The use of such i)oisons as above recommended for 

 the striped beetle will do no good in case of the bugs, as they do not eat the 

 leaves, but pass their beaks through the outside ol the leaf to suck the juices, 

 ■and so will not get any of the poison. 



