OF NORTHERN AMERICA. 453 



covered only by the bark. Here it is transformed; and, 

 easting off its proper skin in the month of June, it comes 

 forth a perfect beetle, to deposit its eggs as before, and 

 give birth to a new generation of pests. I saw the stems of 

 young trees cut down in Mr French s orchard as useless, 

 which, though scarcely thicker than my arm, were abso 

 lutely riddled with holes, ascending from four to eight 

 inches, chiefly through the exterior inch of the wood. 

 The cure is to spread lime round the roots during the 

 summer and autumn, with the view of preventing the 

 deposition of the eggs, and to bare the foot of the stem, 

 and follow into their holes, with a crooked wire, those 

 larvae which have already secured an entrance. 



The pear and peach trees also are each attacked by 

 their own borers, which are species of Egeria, a genus 

 which inhabits the stems of our European currant-bush. 

 The beautiful sugar-maple is often destroyed by a 

 coleopterous borer called Clytus speciosus. The magni 

 ficent American elm is subject to a similar visitation ; 

 and scarcely a tree of any value has not, in this country, 

 its own enemy with a boring propensity. Even the 

 squash is attacked by a borer, (Egeria cucurbitce,) which 

 frequently as was the case with Jonah s gourd causes 

 the plant to die suddenly down to the root. 



At a corn-mill on Mr French s farm, I found the 

 stones in operation, crushing into coarse powder for 

 animal food a beautiful sample of yellow southern 

 Indian corn. No one can go to the United States 

 without interesting himself more or less with the pro 

 cesses by which this magnificent and prolific grain is 

 cultivated and manufactured into food for man and 

 beast. I embraced the opportunity of collecting some 

 of the pure bran, or outer husk of the corn, which is 

 difficult to separate so completely as is done in the mill, 

 with the view of examining whether, like the bran of 

 wheat, it contained a large percentage of what is con- 



