4S6 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



tormenting one by getting under the gkin. Rest is 

 banishe J during the sultry hours, for the human subject ; 

 while c.ittlc, iiorses, and domestic animals generally are 

 worried so that they can neither feed nor rest. Flies 

 get entry into your mouth, into your eyes, into your 

 nose. You eat flies, drink flies, and breathe flies. Li- 

 zards, centipedes, cockroaches, and snakes get into the 

 bed; ants eat up the books ; scorpions sting you on the 

 foot. Everything bites, stings, or bruises ; every se- 

 cond of your existence you are wounded by some piece 

 of animal life that is new to you. An insect with eleven 

 legs is swimming in your teacup ; a nondescript with 

 nine wings is struggling in your beer j or a caterpillar 

 with several dozen eyes in his belly is hastening over 

 the bread. All nature is alive, and seems to be ga- 

 thering all her entomological hosts to eat you up, as 

 you are standing out of your coat, waistcoat, and 

 breeches. Such are the tropics. Even in parts of 

 North America, a resident tells us — " If you would 

 sleep on a sweltering night in June, nothing short 

 of chloroform will render a novice insensible to the 

 melody of tho5e sw.imp serenaders, the musquitoes, 

 or the tactics of their bloodthirsty ally, the black fly, 

 who noiselessly fastens upon your jugular, while the 

 musquito is bragging in your face. Two remedies are 

 at your service, either of which some persons will be 

 found captious enough to consider worse than the dis- 

 ease. The first cure is the one applied to hams — smoke 

 yourself until your eyes are like burned holes in a 

 blanket, and you have creos ite enough in your mouth 

 to cure a toothache. The second is to smear all your 

 assailable parts with Canadian balsam, until, after a 

 night's tossing in your blanket, you have wool enough 

 on your face and hands to make you look, as well as 

 feel, decidedly sheepish." 



It is, however, with the pests of agriculture that we 

 are specially interested, and to which we would direct 

 attention. Here is a subject to which the Royal Agri- 

 cultural Society might well devote itself, by bringing to 

 bear on it the more extended practical observations of 

 the farmers and the investigating skill of scientific men. 

 Too little has yet been done on a broad scale in this di- 

 rection. Entomologists have taken up occasionally the 

 investigation of one or other of the predatory irisects; 

 but there are few collected details, or scientific examina- 

 tions. With the exception of KoUar's work on Insects 

 injurious to Agriculture, and Mr. Curtis's essays (there 

 is one very excellent one in the last volume of the 

 Journal), we do not know of any special treatise that 

 enters into detail on this important matter fraught with 

 such larger interests and hi^di importance. Among the 

 officers belonging to the Royal Agricultural Society, 

 we do not find, as in the New York and Paris societies, 

 an entomologist, and yet the agricultural crops of vari- 

 ous kinds are eveu of a higher importance than the 

 live stock. If we have a veterinary professor for the 

 one, surely the ravages committed by insects on the 

 other demand the supervision and scientific examina- 

 tion of an entomologist to point out the habits of the 

 insects, characteristics, and remedies. 



The American Legislature votes ,£'200 a-year to 



promote tlie investigations of Dr. Asa Fitch, Entomo- 

 logist of the New York State Agricultural Society. A 

 most useful collection of insects hurtful to agriculture 

 has been formed under his supervision, and much 

 useful information obtained and promulgated. M. 

 EdwiU'ds, the administrator and curator of the Collec- 

 tion of Entomology at Paris, recently sent over to the 

 New York society a collection of the predatory insects 

 from Algiers. In parts of Canada and the United 

 States great ravages are occasionally committed by 

 three distinct insects destructive to the wheat crops, 

 which in name, at least, are often confoundtd — the 

 Hessian fly (Cecldomya destructor), the weevil, Ca- 

 landra grnnans), and the wheat midge, or wheat 

 gnat (Cecidomya tritici). Almost every local society 

 abroad is doing something in this direction ; but their 

 labours want collecting, to be of general use. The 

 Agricultural Board of Canada recently devoted £80 in 

 premiums for the best essays on the origin, nature, habits, 

 history of the progress from time to time, and the causes 

 of the insects, which ravaged the wheat crops. The South 

 Australian and other agricultural societies have all 

 moved in the same direction. To understand in their 

 true extent the depredations of insects, we must not, 

 as Mr. Spence observed some yeai's ago, confine our 

 attention to the hundreds of thousands of pounds 

 which we annually lose from the attacks of the hop- 

 fly, turnip-flies, the wire-worm, the weevil, and the 

 host of insect assailants of our home agricultural and 

 horticultural produce, but we must extend our views 

 to the colonies and foreign countries. We shall there 

 find that in Australia and British North America the 

 potato crops are often, in some quarters, wholly cut off 

 by the potato bug ; that in the West and East Indies 

 the cocoanut trees are the prey of a boring insect ; 

 that the cotton crops of India and America are 

 frequently seriously injured by insects of various 

 tribes, whose history we have yet to learn ; that 

 in Ceylon the coffee-bug commits sad depreda- 

 tions on the trees ; that in the Straits settlements the 

 spice- trees are much subject to the attacks of 

 certain species of cocci ; while in Africa whole tracts of 

 country are devastated by swarms of locusts, although 

 these are greedily seized on, in turn, as food by the 

 natives. It would therefore seem that the vegetable 

 world has plagues far greater than ever Moses inflitted 

 on the inhabitants of Egypt. 



We see, then, that insects are the most numerous, 

 as well as the most destructive, foes to which the agri- 

 culturist is exposed. 



As Loudon observed long ago, their species are so 

 many, and their devastation so varied, that, without 

 some acquaintance with their scientific classification 

 and a correct knowledge of their haunts and economy 

 their operations can neither be understood nor effec- 

 tually counteracted. 



What we desire to see is some good collection of in- 

 sects, &c., and their injurious effects shown, which shall 

 be available for reference both by the scientific man and 

 by the farmer, gardener, and tropical cultivator. At 

 present we have nothing of this kind on a respectai)Ie 



