no 



the earth like a new Egyptian plague. They seem to be actuated by the same prin- 

 ciple as " She," in Haggard's novel, and intend to "Blast" their way to success. If any 

 one wishes to live here by farming the whole present system will have to be revised, 

 a complete change of crops will have to be made. Clover and a variet\' of root crops 

 will have to be grown. I did hope that by putting down most of our land in timothy 

 meadows we might evade the bugs, but it seems now that they will damage timothy 

 as bad as any other of the grass family; especially so would it be if the cereals and 

 other grasses were not to be had. 



The Chinch Bug is too prolific and omnivorous to be vanquished by any other 

 mothod than starvation. — [J. G. Barlow, Cadet, Mo., July 9, 1838. 



A problematical remedy against the Asparagus Beetle. 



Asparagus beetle. — Last year I had very great numbers of them on my field. In Oc- 

 tober, after several killing frosts, I found hundreds of them on a few small plants 

 which had escaped. All summer I fought them with Paris green. Being frightened 

 by the great numbers seen as late as October, this spring I opened furrows on each 

 side of the rows and placed a little more than half a ton ot tobacco stems in those 

 rows, closing them aga'n with a plow. The two acres and one-third were disposed in 

 four beds of twelve each, with a road 10 feet wide between every two beds, leaving for 

 for the filth bed only five rows. There was no tobacco placed in the roads. Thisspriug 

 I planted a row of asparagus in each road, as indicated by the larger dots. There 

 was also an asparagus seed-bed from which I planted another 3|^ acres with asparagus 

 this spring. No tobacco was placed on the seed-bed. The place where the seed-bed had 

 been is now a part of the new asparagus plantation. Several hundred plants which 

 were not needed were heeled in about 50 paces away from the former seed-bed ; most 

 of them were sold, but some, perhaps fifty, remained, The plants with which those 

 former roads were planted were, of course, taken from the seed-bed, where no tobacco 

 had been used. The only places attacked by beetles this summer are those four roads, 

 the space where the seed-bed had been, and the plants heeled in. Had I used tobacco 

 on the seed-bed I think my plantation would have been entirely free from the beetle. 



I had used tobacco in former years against the cut-worms which ate oif the young 

 shoots of my grapevines, by surrounding each plant with stems, dug in, with entire 

 success. • * * — [G. A. Schmitt, P. O. box 156, Wellesley, Mass., July 11, 1888. 



Increased ravages of Icerya in California. 



During the latter part of last week and the early part of the present one I have 

 been out to Pasadena and down to Orange, helping two different parties to get their 

 fumigators in operation. The party at Orange told me that if he could not make a suc- 

 cess of the gas he would cut down his trees, and several other orange-growers have told 

 me the same thing in regard to their own trees. You have doubtless seen in the Pa- 

 cific Rural Press that Mr. A. S. Chapman has resigned his position on the State Board 

 of Horticulture, giving as his reason for so doing that the ravages of the Icerya had 

 forced him to abandon fruit-growing. He and his father own what was once one of 

 the finest orange and lemon groves in southern California, but is now almost worthless, 

 owing to the ravages of the scale insects. A few weeks ago his father, Mr. A. B. 

 Chapman, told me that he took what money his oranges and lemons brought him and 

 spent it in spraying his trees with one of the best caustic washes in use, and as a re- 

 sult his trees were injured to such an extent that they will bear no fruit the present 

 year, while the scale insects are about as numerous as before the spraying had been 

 done. 



Several other growers in the San Gabriel Valley told me that they were seriously 

 thinking of abandoning their orange and lemon groves on account of the scale 

 insects. It is getting to be a very serious question in this part of the State. — [D. W. 

 Coquillett, Los Angeles, Cal., September 1, 1888. 



