360 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



grapes and had, as I did last year, bushels destroyed, utterly disbelieved this 

 theory, and was ready to indict the bee-keeper for maintaining a nuisance. I 

 have not kept bees for a good many years, and so had no chance to experiment 

 with them, and I firmly believed that bees did destroy the grapes. Some ex- 

 periments have been made recently by Mr. Lyn Bonham, a young gentleman 

 attending the Miami Classical school at Oxford, 0., which seem to settle the 

 question and exonerate the bees. Ue placed on the honey board of a Lang- 

 stroth hive a bunch of ripe grapes, and after leaving them two days he ex- 

 amined them and found them perfect, lie then punctured three of them with 

 a pin and replaced them, and on examining them a few hours after, he found 

 those he had punctured all sucked dry and none of the rest damaged in the 

 least. This seems to be conclusive, but as " in the multitude of counselors is 

 safety," I wish to ask a number of our readers who have bees to try this simple 

 test. Select a bunch of grapes that you are sure are sound, and after leaving 

 them in the hive, or in front of it, a while, puncture a part of them, and let 

 us know the result. If the bees have stood charged with the sin of the vrasps, 

 hornets, and yellow jackets, it is time they were vindicated. — Waldo, in Prac- 

 tical Farmer, 



THE SQUASH BOEER. 



The squash borer is produced from an egg laid on the vine near the roots of 

 the plants some time from the middle of July to the middle of August, or 

 perhaps earlier. AVhen hatched, the young worm bores iiito the stalk till it 

 reaches the center, where it feeds until it comes to maturity. At this tinie the 

 cavity it makes is so large that it causes the vines to wilt often quite suddenly. 

 This sudden wilting may be accounted for on the supposition tliat this, like 

 many other caterpillars, has a voracious appetite just before it is ready to 

 undergo its transformations. AVhcn ready to pupate, the worm either deserts 

 the vine that has furnished it food, and forms a rude eartlien cocoon in which 

 to pupate, or sometimes changes within the hollow stalk. The chrysalis passes 

 the winter in its place of concealment to undergo its final change the following 

 summer: the moth, too, becomes parent for an ensuing brood. This little 

 moth is peculiar. When the wings are spread they measure across them little 

 more than an inch. The wings are narrow, the hind wings and a spot at the 

 base of the fore wings transparent, but the rest of the fore wings and the veins 

 and frinsres of the hind winsjs black. The thorax is dark olive, and the 

 abdomen orange banded with black, but the most noticeable feature is the 

 long hind legs which are heavily fringed with orange and black hairs. — 

 Prairie Farmer. 



GRAPE ROT. 



Although we have given a good deal of space in this volume to the consid- 

 eration of the grape rot problem, we are constrained to add one further note 

 which comprises the general results of observations in Ohio as compiled by 

 Secretary M. B. Batch am : 



1. The varieties of grapes most affected by the rot, arc the Catawba, Con- 

 cord and others of the Labrusca class. 



