THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



My remedy is this: I drive a nail into each of my trees 

 and allow it to remain there. Now to some this might 

 seem strange, but here is the way I reason on the sub'ect. 

 A nail driven into a tree nearly to its heart must ne- 

 cessarily come in contact with the sap of the tree, and 

 this sap passing over the nail rusts it and the rust forms 

 an acid which will not afl'eet the tree, but at the same 

 time it will kill all borers that are in the tre and will 

 not allow others to enter it. I have seen borers penetrate 

 the bark of a tree that had been prepared in this way, 

 but they would back out and go no farther. For a small 

 tree use a shingle nail and for larger ones use a nail in pro- 

 portion. I wish some one would try this and report the 

 result through your paper. '• PECULIAR." 



Now seriously — for this is a serious matter and 

 should be tested in sober serious earnest — -do pray, 

 Mr. Peculiar, examine your theory a little more 

 closely, before you try to induce your unfortunate 

 "some one" to play the carpenter in his orchard. 

 How much ru.st would form on the surface of a ten- 

 penny nail in •the course of a year ? Probably a 

 few grains by weight, which when distributed 

 through the entire wood of a good-sized tree would 

 be a very homeopathic dose indeed for each day of 

 the year. This rust is, I believe, Oxide of iron, 

 i. e. a combination of iron with the gas called 

 oxygen ; but who told you that this rust " would 

 form an acid" with the sap ? I am sure no 

 Chemist is at present aware of any such fact. But 

 suppose it is so. What is the chemical name of 

 this acid ? Is it oxalic acid, or malic acid, or sul- 

 phuric acid ? Until you find this out, how do you 

 know that " it will not affect the tree, but will kill 

 all the borers in the tree ?" But you say that 

 " you ha^'e seen borers penetrate the bark of a tree 

 that had been prepared in this manner" and then 

 " back out and go no further.'' There you are 

 manifestly mistaken. When borers first enter a 

 tree, they are so small that you could not see them 

 with the naked eye ; and until they are ready 

 to change into the perfect insect, they remain all 

 the time inside the tree. But you seem to think 

 that they roam about outside the tree, tapping it 

 here and there like a woodpecker. You must have 

 mistaken a caterpillar for a borer ; and if you 

 made such a grand mistake about an insect, you 

 may have made other equally serious mistakes 

 about the nails. Lawyers hold that if a witness 

 breaks down on any one point, he breaks down 

 upon all ; and I therefore prefer not to accept your 

 theory without further and better proof. Like 

 the tailor in Shakspe;ire, when Falstaff offered him 

 red-nosed old Bardolph as security for a debt, " I 

 like not such security.'' 



The New Potato Bug. 



BV BEXJ. D. WALSH, M. 



I have just received specimens of this little pest 

 from my friend, F. K. Phoenix, the proprietor of 

 the large Nursery at Bloomington, 111. He says 

 that they are very bad on the potatoes and egg- 

 plants in that neighborhood. Yesterday I had 

 siicoiraeus sent me froiu Athens, 111., which is situ- 

 ated in Menard County, a little west of the centre 

 of the State ; and I know that already last autumn 

 they had reached a point in the interior lying thir- 

 ty miles south-east of Hock Island, Illinois. But 



Bloomington is in McLean County, considerably to 

 the East of the centre of the State, and is over a 

 hundred miles in a straight line from the nearest 

 point on the Mississippi River. In 1864 we know 

 that this insect infested the potato at Warsaw, on 

 the Mississippi; and if it travelled thence to Bloom- 

 ington in the two years intervening between the 

 spring of 1864 and the spring of 18G6,it must have 

 progressed at more than the average rate of fifty 

 miles a year, which is what I assigned as its prob- 

 able rate of eastward progression in the First Num- 

 ber of the Practical ENTOMOLonisT. From 

 Bloomington to the western borders of Indiana is 

 only about seventy miles; so that by 1868 the 

 Hooshiers will probably receive a friendly morning 

 call from the stranger. 



In the meantime, wherever the insect has once 

 made a settlement, there it remains permanently, 

 year after year ; as the following communications, 

 one from Iowa and the other from Illinois, show 

 pretty plainly: — 



The Potato Bcg — That terrible Colorado product, ac- 

 cording to the entomologists — is upon us again in great 

 numbers. May be some of the potato crop will be saved, 

 and may be it will not. The Lady Bugs are here too — 

 thanks to Colorado for sending us the antidote with the 

 bane — if she did it! Let everybody encaurage the lady 

 bugs and render them every assistance possible. Won- 

 der if President Johnson, now that he has got his hand 

 in, cannot be induced to veto the Colorado buf/, as well as 

 the Colorado bill? If he will but do it, I pledge myself 

 in advance to hurrah for at least one veto. (T. G., War- 

 saw, 111., in Prairie I'armer, June 9, 1S66.) 



The Potato Bugs are Again Eavaging Iowa. — ]\I. H. 

 BisHARD, Des Moiues, says; "They are here by millions. 

 The only chance of getting any potatoes this year is to 

 make war upon the bugs. I take a paddle and basket 

 and beat tiie bugs into it, and kill them with hot water. 

 Our experience with potato bugs teaches that we can 

 only raise potatoes by the sweat of our brow. Imagine 

 me standing, basket and paddle in hand, in the midst of 

 a patch of potatoes, with from six to twelve bugs on each 

 hill, and you will have a jihotograph of my patch." — (jV. 

 Y. Sem. Tribune, June 12, ISGfi.) 



Mr. Phoenix — who, as one of the largest and most 

 enterprising nurserymen in the country, is pretty 

 competent to form an opinion — thinks that there is 

 no science of more practical importance to the Farm- 

 er than Economic Entomology; and that in every 

 State in the Union, and in every good College in 

 America, there ought to be a large Class of Stu- 

 dents devoting their whole time to the subject. 

 "Where there is one now," be adds, "there ought 

 to be a hundred." I have long been of the same 

 opinion myself; but then everybody thinks that I 

 am a mere visionary enthusiaijt, riding my own spe- 

 cial and peculiar hobby to death; and insects are 

 such very small bugs, and Legislator^ generally are 

 such very big bugs, that the infinitely large over- 

 looks and despises the infinitely small. When, 

 however, practical business men, like Mr. Phoenix, 

 see the necessity of legislative action on the sub- 

 ject, and more especially now that the public mind 

 is beginning to perceive, that five tons of Cliineh 

 Bug will destroy infinitely more green wheat than 

 five tons of Elephant, though the Elephant is a 

 unit and the Chinch Bugs are as the sand on the 

 sea-shore; there is some liojie that the eyes of 

 Congress ;tnd of our State Legislatures may be gra- 

 dually opened, and that they will cease to consider 



