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EXPERIMENTS WITH THE POTATO BUG. 
Edwin Reynolds, our Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, correspondent, writes as follows 
of his experience with the potato bug: 
I planted potatoes May 7 and 8; the field 30 by 8 rods; planted east and west. In the 
centre I planted 10 rows of early varieties, which came up much sooner than the main field, 
and some days earlier than the Early Goodrich, planted side by side at the same time. On 
the 26th full grown bugs (two) made their appearance, the field being 80 rods from where 
potatoes had been before; 27th, ten were destroyed; 28th, thirty; 29th, sixty-seven; 30th, 
thirty; 31st, fifteen—up to which time all were on about a rod of ground. June 1, two other 
small spots were infested, when I came to the conclusion that the price of potatoes was eternal 
vigilance. Therefore, with two paddles in hand, I scrutinized every hill myself, destroying 
bugs and larvee until the 22d, when the larvee that I had overlooked became crawling slugs 
and so numerous that I resorted to a pan and stick, knocking them off and destroying them. 
This I practiced until July 5, when I was told by a farmer from Iowa that one pound Paris 
green and four pounds dry ashes sifted and well mixed, applied to the infested vines while 
the dew was on, was sure death to the bugs and no injury to the vines. I tried it, and to my 
ereat satisfaction found it to be so. I used the composition, passing over the field twice a 
week, and kept the bugs subdued until the leaves had become too tough for their food, and 
they have disappeared. 
It will be noticed the bugs appeared in my field in patches. Many conjectures arose in my 
mind, as to whether they were deposited in the ground last fall or flew in the night from one 
field to another. I came to the former conclusion, for had they flown in the night they would 
have been more evenly distributed over the field. 
I would recommend planting in fields of long narrow strips, and, at least once in two rods, 
plant the earliest varieties across the piece, that the bugs in the ground may be destroyed 
before the main field is up, as they will surely concentrate on the earliest varieties. [ would 
further recommend that planting be done with single eyes, say five in a hill, that they may 
crow single stalks in order to more closely detect the larvee as they are deposited on the under 
side of the leaves. 
The most convenient method of destroying the bugs is by using a pair of tongs made of 
nail-rod. With such an instrument bugs and eggs can be kept off for some time with as 
little labor as using the Paris green and ashes, and saving the cost of the pigment. 
A neighbor of mine planted potatoes on ground that grew potatoes the year before, and 
when covermg them found from three to seven full-grown bugs on each potato. 
PISCICULTURE. 
In a recent letter to the Commissioner, Seth Green writes as follows in reference 
to his labors in pisciculture : 
Last spring I visited the James, Potomac, Susquehanna, Delaware, Hudson, Connecticut, 
and Merrimac rivers, and find that all the fisheries are failing, a less number of shad, herring, 
alewives, etc., being taken each year. The chief cause of this decline is the great amount 
of fishing tackle used on the rivers, the take being greater than the increase. ‘The rivers can 
aJl be restocked artificially, but not without legislation. The fishermen want to take the last 
fish, but no one of them will do any hatching for fear some other fisherman may take some 
of the fish. 
The season varies in all the rivers. After a certain season in each river there should be no 
fish taken except for artificial propagation. The rivers must be farmed from one end to the 
other. You might as well undertake to raise produce on one farm to feed a country as to 
hatch fish enough at one fishery to stock the river. They should be hatched at every fishery, 
and when the fishermen put back in the river 1,000 fish for every one taken out there will be 
plenty of fish, and that will be done when the legislatures make laws recommended by the 
commissioners of fisheries. But when the fish commissioner prepares a bill, after long expe- 
rience and careful consideration as to what is requisite and proper, the legislator thinks a few 
minutes to see if he or his friends are to be interfered with, and strokes his beard very know- 
ingly; and there are so many such to convince that you are right, that it is almost impossible 
to get a bill through. 
I think the hot weather has killed a great many fish in all the rivers and bays. On the 12th, 
13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th of July, the water in the Connecticut river stood at from 82 to 83 
degrees. I saw many dead shad in the river, and the fatality must have been much greater 
in the less rapid rivers, bays lakes, and ponds, and I think it a serious loss to the country. 
I began to operate June 18, at Holyoke, on the Connecticut river, and hatched about 
