452 FRUIT-TREE DESTROYERS 



extent of his better land. To clear such land, and to 

 build up the stones into a fence round a six or eight 

 acre field, cost him at the rate of 150 dollars (30 guineas) 

 an acre. The increased value of the land would scarcely 

 equal this large outlay ; but I found here more of the 

 love of paternal acres of a desire to improve and 

 embellish, because the place is a man s own, and he is 

 to reap both the profit and the pleasure of it ; more of 

 what we think and feel at home upon such matters, in 

 short, than I had yet seen in any other part of the 

 Union. Each succeeding occupier does something to 

 better or increase the available surface ; and it is in 

 this way that the wealth made in the city is poured out 

 upon the rural districts, binding together city and 

 country, and increasing, by every improvement, even 

 when it does not repay the man who makes it, the 

 permanent wealth and resources of the State. 



I here had an opportunity of becoming acquainted, by 

 personal observation, with a class of tree-destroyers, 

 which are comparatively unknown in our own country. 

 These are the borers. This class of insects is very 

 characteristic of Northern America, and very abundant 

 in individuals, species, and genera. The habit of boring 

 is one by which it is peculiarly adapted to a region where 

 the severity of the winter s frost destroys all insects which 

 have not provided themselves with an adequate shelter. 



The apple-borer is the larva of a beetle called Superda 

 bivittata, which attains a length of a half to three-fourths 

 of an inch. In June and July this beetle lays its eggs 

 upon the bark of the tree near the root during th e night. 

 The white fleshy grub, hatched from these eggs, cuts a 

 passage for itself through the bark, and bores into the 

 body of the wood, casting its borings behind. It remains 

 here two or three years in the larva state, during which 

 time it ascends the trunk probably ten or twelve, or even 

 more, inches, and is found at the end of its wanderings 



