82 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OP 



heart he invited me to " call along" occasionally, and feast my eyes 

 on the gradual development of the incipient bunches. Thinking that 

 August would be a good month for my visit, I " called along," won- 

 dering in my mind whether my friend would, when the time of ripe 

 grapes came, desire me to help myself out of his abundance; or 

 whether he intended to surprise me with a little basket of nice 

 bunches, garnished with crisp, green leaves. The first glance at the 

 grape-vine banished all doubts on this point. There were an abun- 

 dance of bunches on the vine, in a rather immature condition, of 

 course, but of foliage there was not a trace. Of course I expressed 

 my surprise, though, for certain reasons, I felt none ; and asked my 

 friend why he selected a species of vine for shelter, ornament, and use, 

 which produced no foliage. He rebuked my ignorance pretty sharply, 

 and told me that a few weeks before, the vine was covered with leaves ; 

 but, for some inexplicable reason, they had all disappeared — eaten, he 

 guessed, by something. He guessed right. There were at least a 

 hundred of the larvce of A, octomaoulata, the rear guard of a mighty 

 host, wandering about the branches, apparently for the purpose of 

 making sure that no little particle of a leaf was left undevoured. 

 Pretty little things they were, with harmoniously blended colors of 

 black, yellow and blue, but so terribly destructive ! I had the curi- 

 osity to walk through all the streets to the east of Third avenue, as 

 low as Twenty-third street, and every vine was in the same predica- 

 ment. If grape leaves, instead of fig leaves, had been in request for 

 making aprons, and one Alypia had been in existence at the time, I 

 doubt if in the whole Garden of Eden enough material would have 

 been found to make a garment of decent size. The destruction of 

 the crop for 1868 was complete. 



" This was bad. But it was not half so bad as the helpless ignor- 

 ance which possessed nearly all of the unfortunate owners of vines. 

 Scarcely one that I conversed with had the remotest idea of the cause 

 of the disaster, and when I explained that it was the caterpillar of s a 

 beautiful little black moth, with eight whitish-yellow spots on its 

 wings, which had eaten up the foliage, my assertion was received 

 with such a smile of incredulity, as convinced me that there is no use 

 in trying to humbug such very sharp fellows as are the New York 

 grape-growers. 



"It is a little remarkable, however, that the destruction was con- 

 fined to the eastern part of the city. I saw several luxuriant vines 

 on the western side ; and across the river at Hoboken, and at Hudson 

 City, not a trace of A. octornaculata was discernible. 



"The insect, then, is very local in its habits, and it is a day-flyer 5 

 and, from these facts, I infer that its ravages may be very materially 

 checked. A little poisoned molasses, exposed in the neighborhood of 

 the vine, would operate on the perfect insect [extremely doubtful] : 

 while a good syringing with soft soap and water would bring down 

 the caterpillars effectually." 



