68 COLORADO POTATO-BEETLE. 



iou8 insects that have been equally prevalent, will in time disap- 

 pear, especially in those localities where it is now most abundant, 

 even though we leave the work wholly to Nature. But we must 

 give her time. Nature moves more slowly but more surely than 

 man, and her judgments take the course of an inevitable retribu- 

 tion. If we can have more patience, and get along with fewer 

 potatoes for a year or two, I doubt not the day of our redemption 

 will draw nigh. But as we do not know exactly when that time 

 will come, and as patience without potatoes may seem to many a 

 tedious virtue, I opine there can be no sin in our doing what we 

 can to hasten the wished-for result. Let us see, then, what hope 

 we can derive from any success that has attended past efforts in 

 this direction. 



There are four principal methods and agencies which have been 

 adopted for the purpose of destroying these prolific and pernicious 

 insects : first, hand picking and mechanical contrivances ; second, 

 sun-burning ; third, starvation ; and fourth, Paris-green. Mr. 

 S. S. Barnes, of Olena, Henderson county, says he has preserved 

 his potatoes for the last five years, by mashing between his thumb 

 and finger, every bug that made its appearance on his vines, and 

 picking ofi" their eggs. He says that for early kinds, twice going 

 over, once when the vines are three or four inches high, and again 

 in ten or twelve days atterwards, is all that is necessary. This 

 may be styled the experimentum crucis method, and is of course 

 a sure cure, where it can be applied ; that is where the field is 

 not too large, nor the bugs too numerous, nor the operator too 

 sensitive. 



Speaking of mashing these insects in the hand, suggests the 

 question of their alleged poisonous nature. Mr. Barnes says that 

 though he has practiced this method freely for five years, he has 

 never experienced any poisonous effects from it. There is no 

 doubt, however, that they are poisonous to a certain extent, and this 

 has been most strikingly manifested in the efiects of the fumes 

 arising from their burning bodies. Major W. N. Davis, of Aux 

 Sable Grove, recently told me that his neighbors, the Messrs. 

 Cherry, were quite severely poisoned by the smoke arising from 

 an ignited hollow stump into which a quantity of Potato-bugs had 

 been thrown. It afi'ected them very much like an attack of ery- 



