104 THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



No doubt you too, Mr. Editor, would gladly open the pages of the 

 Horticulturist to any members of such a botanical society, who 

 would prepare popular articles upon their favorite subject. 



Thus our Association, being fed on one side by a stream of entomo- 

 logical information, and on the other by a stream of botanical service, 

 would surely live and flourish, "as long as grass grows and water runs." 



THE FIEST OF THE SEASOX. 



BY REV. VINCENT CLEMENTI, B. A., PETERBOROUGH. 



Those persons, if any such there be, M'ho have been indulging the 

 pleasing hope that the swarm of potato beetles, Dori/phora decern- 

 lineata, is becoming "small by degrees and beautifully less," will, I 

 fear, find such hope a fallacy. 



I had set out in my garden a dozen fine tomato plants, six of the 

 Improved Trophy, and six of the Acme, and had carefully protected 

 them from the sun by day and from the frost by night, when, on 

 Saturday the seventeenth instant, I discovered the terrible pests above 

 named feeding upon their leaves, and in so lively a condition that 

 they were evidently preparing for the propagation of their unwhole- 

 some species. 



I have intimated that I had to protect the plants from the frost 

 at night as well as from the sun by day, for whatever the nocturnal 

 temperature may have been in your more genial climate, with us, on 

 the night of the eighth instant, my self-registering thermometer ran 

 down to 30°, and again, on the thirteenth the spirit rose in the after- 

 noon to 86° in the shade, a variation of 56° in five days. 



Another and far more agreeable "harbinger of spring," a so-called 

 robin, which, however, is really a thrush, {Turdus migratorius), built 

 her nest on the capital of one of my verandah pillars, within a few feet of 

 the front door; and notwithstanding the disturbance occasioned by the 

 passing to and fro of many people throughout the day, lias succeeded 

 in hatching out her progeny, and, aided by her mate, is now diligently 

 supplying her callow brood with their favorite food, the luscious worm 

 or the juicy caterpillar. 



My lawns, thanks to a good top-dressing of old manure given them 

 last fall, are looking beautiful, never more so, and have already been 

 subjected three times to to the operation of the mowing machine. 



