DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



and expending all its energies in growing. Let 

 it grow, and the larger it gets the more superb 

 will be its bloom, when it comes into a flowering 

 condition again — which it will doubtless do next 

 season. We seen it, farther south, covering a 

 trellis 50 feet long, loaded with flowers at the 

 end of every branch. There, it stands the win- 

 ter without care, but in Illinois our correspond- 

 ent will have to bend it down and cover it so as 

 to protect it from frost and wet in winter. All 

 tliat need be done with it this season, is to let 

 it grow till the middle of October as freely as it 

 likes. Then commence pinching off the end 

 of every shoot, and repeat thisif it starts again. 

 This will force the young wood to ripen well 

 before winter, and next season the plant will 

 doubtless bloom very profusely. 



We quite agree with our " Subscriber at the 

 West" in differing from J. C. H. in his opinion 

 regarding the worthlessness of birds as insect 

 destroyers. If J. C. H. will examine the works 

 of any of the entomologists who have taken 

 pains carefully to study the habits of insects, he 

 will find them continually referring to the agency 

 of birds in destroying or preventing the exces- 

 sive increase of various sorts of insects. We 

 ask, as a specimen, his attention to the follow- 

 ing paragraph, which we quote from Harris' 

 Insects, p. 26. " A cautious observer, having 

 found a nest of five young jays, remarked, that 

 each of these birds while yet very young, con- 

 sumed at least fifteen of these full sized grubs 

 (cockchafers) in a day, and of course would re- 

 quire many more of a smaller size. Say that, 

 on an average of sizes they consumed twenty 

 a piece, these for the five, make one hundred. 

 Each of the parents consume say fifty, so that 

 the pair and family consume two hundred every 

 day. 



But as the grub continues in that state four 

 seasons, this single pair, with their family alone, 

 without recognizing their descendants after 

 the first year, would destroy 80,000 grubs. 

 Let us suppose that the half, namely, 40,000 

 are females, and it is well known that thej^ lay 

 about 200 eggs each ; it will appear, that no less 

 than eight millions have been destroyed, or pre- 

 vented from being hatched by the labors of a 

 single fixmily of jaj-s. It is by reasoning in this 

 that we learn to know of what importance 

 attend to the economj' of nature, and to 



be cautious how we derange it by our short- 

 sighted and futile operations." Ed. 



Notes from Illinois. — Sir: It is rather late 

 in the season to inform you of the effects of the 

 last winter, but as I do not observe any men- 

 tion made of it by correspondents from Illinois, 

 I will give you a few items' — although Septem- 

 ber was a very hot and dry month, yet the win- 

 ter came on so gradually that fruit trees and 

 fruit would not have suffered but for the great 

 severity of the freezing— the murcury in F. at 

 several times went to 14° below zero, but espe- 

 cially on tlie 19th January when it reached 22° 

 below zero. Of course we could not hope that 

 the buds of the peach could resist such extremes, 

 but we hoped that the seasonable weather in the 

 beginning of winter had prepared the tender 

 shoots to resist it — but it proved too much for 

 them, and great numbers of young trees have 

 wholly perished, while all have suffered greatly 

 — from one inch to three feet of the extremities 

 of the limbs having been killed. Strawberry 

 plants that were not protected also suffered — 

 particularly Hovey's Seedling — a strawberry 

 that I received as Keen's Seedling, but which 

 I think must be the Early Scarlet, has stood 

 the winter w^ell, and is the only one that has set 

 any fruit — but much of that was killed by a 

 frost on the 20th May. Kather a hard climate 

 this for gardening and fruit culture — ten days 

 ago to-day every tender plant that was not Avell 

 protected, was destroyed or injured by frost — 

 the mercury being down to 32° on the morning 

 of the 20th, and to-day the direct rays of the 

 sun have scorched and curled beans and the 

 tender foliage of the pea — at three P. M., the 

 mercury stood at 96 in the shade, free from 

 reflection. But all I wish to trouble you, after 

 this long story about the difficulties of our cli- 

 mate, is to ask j'ou or your correspondents for 

 some remedy against an enemy to the straw- 

 berry, which is new to us here. It is a worm 

 about an inch long when grown, dark colored 

 with but few bristles, very active in its move- 

 ments when disturbed, that rolls it.self in the 

 leaf by a web and then preys upon everything 

 within reach giving a scorched and blighted ap- 

 pearance to a whole bed that previously was 

 most luxuriant — it is so wound up in the leaf 

 that no general application of dry liquid 

 reach it — tobacco juice will destroy it when 



