42 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



have gained a great disidoratum. To have 

 good fruit tlie tree must be healthy. With 

 healthy trees he contended that, as a rule, we 

 would have good crops and fruit of a better 

 quality, though there miglit be failures in ex- 

 ceptional years, owing to other causes. He 

 commended the essay for its many excells;nt 

 practical suggestions. 



William McCoMSEY commended the essay 

 as desei-ving the thanks of the Society. lie 

 agreed with the essayist in regard to the advim- 

 tage of manuring. He had tried it twice with 

 great satisfaction. In the year 1836 or 1837, 

 he planted an orchard with the best varieties 

 of trees that were then known. Twenty 

 years afterward he became the owner of that 

 orchard and was surprised at the scrubby and 

 mean condition of the trees, and the small 

 quantity and poor quality^ of the fruit they 

 bore; especially as he knew from personal 

 knowledge that the trees were of good varieties 

 and had borne fruit of a good quality. The 

 first year the orchard came into his possession 

 he ploughed it, limed it heavily, and gave it 

 besides a good coat of stable manure. That 

 year the apple crop failed everywhere, owing 

 to protracted rainy weather during the season 

 of bloom; but a change in the healthy growth 

 of the trees was apparent. They threw out 

 new branches and looked healthy. At the 

 first pruning he cut away half the wood— made 

 the pruning thorough. The next year he was 

 rewarded witli an abundant crop of excellent 

 fruit, and the orchard never failed under his 

 observation, even in years when his neighbors 

 had none. This experience convinced him 

 that manuring orchards is necessary to secure 

 good crops. A few years later he had a similar 

 experience with a single tree in a lot in this 

 city. It had been neglected and the fruit 

 deteriorated from year to year. Having some 

 hog manure for which he had no other use, he 

 spread it over the lot. You would have been 

 surprised at the change produced in the tree. 

 It threw out new and healthy wood and bore 

 finer and larger fruit than it had for years 

 before. The change was so marked in every 

 pespect, that it was the suliject of general 

 remark. He was, therefore, decidedly of 

 opinion that it was chiefly owing to the want 

 of cultivation and manuring tliat our crop of 

 apples fail. [To Mr. El )y . ] Did not continue 

 cultivating the orchard ; kept it in grass for 

 six or seven years, and it never foiled to bear. 

 Ei'iiRAra'HoovEu said his experience was 

 about the same as the last si>eaker. Manuring 

 cannot fail, whether it is applied by topdressiiig 

 or plouglied down. His experience was that 

 when he manured well his apple crop increased. 

 He manured his orchard live times in a iieriod 

 of thirteen years, and it not only improved his 

 soil, but increased his crop of fruit. He attri- 

 buted the best results t() manuring. He also 

 thought many farmers made a mistake in bar- 

 ring swine and other small stock out of their 

 orchards for fear they would eat some of the 

 fruit which first falls. He believed that swine 

 in eating the first fruit which falls prevented 

 the increase of insects injurious to the fruit. 

 An old former once said to him that lie believed 

 the swine were barred out too much; that the 

 first fruit which fell dropped becauseit was in- 

 jured by the insects which drop with it. If it 

 is not eaten, the insects get into the earth to 

 breed the following year to injure the fruit. 

 But if the hogs were let in they destroyed them 

 and thus saved the crop. After this suggestion 

 from the old farmer, he made it a rule to let 

 the swine have free access to his orchards until 

 about September; and the result was that the 

 more he kept them in the better fruit he 

 had, and more of it. It is better to lose the 

 few apples that fall early, and have the insects 

 destroyed, than to risk the whole crop. 



.ToHN B. Eiin thought that this practice of 

 manuring would apply to trees in bearing, but 

 objected to it in the case of young trees, as 

 tending to force tliem into too rapid growth. 

 The object should be to grow them hardy and 

 solid, which might be better done on groiuid 

 not t(io rich ; young trees thus grown would 

 stand the wiiUer better. When fully come 

 into bearing he would cultivate and manure. 



Prof. Rathvon said the lecturer remarked 

 incidentally that severe drought prevented the 

 production of insects injurious to the fruit. 

 This brought up an important fact, which may 

 not be generally known. Two conditions of 

 the weather are destructive to these insects in 

 their larva- and pupa state. In raising insects, 

 in which he had considerable experience, he 

 had been frequently defeated by either too 

 much moisture or too much drought. In the 

 one case they will rot, and in the other dry 

 out. In breeding moths from caterpillars, a 

 process which, in many instances, requires 

 parts of two seasons, he had often failed, by 

 not securing the proper conditions of moisture. 

 In seasons of extreme drought very few insects 

 mature. One reason is that in their unde- 

 veloped state they are partial to succulent 

 vegetation, and when that is dried up they 

 don't get well fed. Tough as are the Curculio, 

 they will die in dry earth, as he had discovered 

 l>y experiment. Moderate moisture is neces- 

 sary to the breeding of insects ; and that is 

 why some, and especially the striped apple 

 tree borers, deposit their eggs aljout the roots 

 of trees, away from the sun, except some spe- 

 cies which cover their eggs with a protective 

 glue to screen them from the sun ; others are 

 affected by excessive moisture. Millions of the 

 " chinch bugs " perish in the west from tliis 

 cause. 



As liearing somewhat on the subject under 

 discussion, Prof. Rathvon said he would read 

 a short article written by Prof. C. V. Riley, 

 of St. Louis, for the New York Trihuue. He 

 had prepared a paper covering a different 

 ground on the same topic for the March num- 

 ber of The Faioiek. He read as follows: 



IS THE COLORADO BEETLE POISONOUS? 



This question, which waR very fully (liseussed, pro 

 .iiid con, between the ye.ars 18fi.5 anil 1870, and settled 

 in the affirmative, has been revived asrain by Prof. T. 

 J. Burrill, of the Illinois Industrial University, who 

 published an item which went the rounds of the 

 acrieultural press, to the effect that the insect is not 

 l)oisonous ; a statement he supported by the fact that 

 he had rubbed the juice of the mashed insect into a 

 flesh cut, and had some accidentally squirted into his 

 eye without any injurious effects resulting:. Now, I 

 would not CO to the extent of a certain sarcastic 

 Chicago professor, who affirms that he could fix up a 

 decoction from the dead beetles that would cause a 

 vacancy in the chair of Vcaretable Physiology and 

 Horticulture in the Illinois industrial University if 

 Prof. Burrill inhaled it. and susfrcsts that there are 

 certain animals that poison v/ill not affect, and that 

 Prof. B. may be one of them ; nor to the extreme of 

 a Philadelphia physician, who asserts that the tinc- 

 ture from this beetle is the most virulent of insect 

 poisons, that "nothing can be compared with it ex- 

 cept tlie Areas of Midna in Persia, and the Coya in 

 the Valley Neyba, in Popavan, South America," ac- 

 eordinc t^ " Ulloa'e Travels," vol. 1, page US. 



Yet there arc so many well authenticated cases of 

 poisonin''- Iiy the fumes' from the scalded insects, that 

 it is surprising that Prof. Burrill should have so 

 stoutly assumed the negative of the question without 

 further research and exiierinient. It is as if I, who 

 am not affected by poison-ivy or bee-sting, should 

 insist on the harmlessncss of either in the face of 

 their well-known poisonous qualities and theirdanger 

 to many persons. I know of physicians who persist 

 in disbelieving that death was ever eaiised by colu- 

 brine poison, because they have never known a fatal 

 case of snake-bite in their own experience ; but skep- 

 ticism of that which is outside one's own experience 

 usually dwells luost where that experience is limited. 

 Since rny experience with the Colorado potato beetle, 

 three ^ases of its poisonous influence have been re- 

 ported to me by persons in whose judgment and 

 veracity I have the utmost confldence; and, without 

 for a monient doubting the facts Prof. Burrill has 

 recorded, which are valuable as far as they go, I 

 woidd simply say that they do not go far enough, 

 and he has liot solved the whole truth of the matter. 

 That the juices of the mashed insects on the human 

 skin are as a rule harmless, is proved by the.hosts of 

 farmers who have crushed them liy hand, and I can 

 testify to the fact from my own experience; indeed, 

 scarcely any one whohashad experience believes the 

 wild stories" of the poisonous nature of these juices. 

 Yet the rule is not without exceptions, and I do not 

 doubt that with blood in certain bad conditions per- 

 sons have been poisoned by gettinig said juices into 

 wounds or cuts.- But to the cases of undoubted poiscm- 

 ing from this insect— cases that have in some in- 

 stances been serious, and even proved fatal— and 

 not from the juices of the body, but from inhalation 

 of the fuuK'S arising from tlie bruising or crushing <>f 

 large masses, and esi)ecially by burning or scalding 

 large quantities at a time. Tlie poison seems to be 



of a very volatile nature, and to produce swelling, 

 pain and nausea, very much as other animal poisons 

 do, and Dr. R. C." Kuden, of Joliet, 111., who, as 

 quoted liy Dr. Hale (Trans. N. Y. Med. Soc, 18T4), 

 experimented on himself by taking the saturated 

 tincture internally— increasing the dose daily from 

 two to twenty drops— experienced great disturbance 

 of the bowels, swelling of the extremeties, bloated 

 face, protruding eyes, "fever, great thirst, and desire 

 for something acid. 



From the present state of the case, therefore, while 

 there can be little danger in the cautious killing of 

 the insect in the field, I would not advise recklessness 

 in handling it in large quantities; and we should 

 especially guard against collecting and destroying it 

 by scalding or burning, in such quantities. There is 

 no longer any occasion for thus collecting and de- 

 stroying the insects ; and since the custom of tackling 

 the enemy with the Paris Creen mixture came into 

 vogue, we have heard much less of "potato-bug" 

 poisoning. I shall be glad to receive, individually, or 

 through the widely circulated columns of the Tribune, 

 any experience on this subject, and especially well 

 authenticated reports of poisoning. Let the facts be 

 stated as briefly as possible, with the name and ad- 

 dress of the writer in full. 



Prof. R. pronounced this one of the best 

 articles on the subject he had seen. He also 

 related an instance of a neighbor, who, with 

 his wife and children, undertook to tight the 

 potato bug by crushing them in thousands 

 witli their hands, no bad effects resulting from 

 it, except that one of the children got a little 

 sick. Finding that slaughtering was a failure 

 he resorted to Paris green and got poisoned, 

 though that was owing to the injudicious 

 handling of it, as he considered its application 

 entirely harmless if properly applied. He said 

 however, that some persons were more consti- 

 tutionally i>redisposed to poisoning than others. 

 lie had never been poisoned in his life, while 

 others could not come within its intluence 

 with impunity. 



UNCLAIJIED PREMIUMS. 



As he had to leave. Prof. Rathvon stiid he 

 -■--'- ,een 



mimit- 



had in his possession SflO.2."), which had 

 put in his hands as chairman of the Com 

 tee on Awards at last exhiliition, which had 

 not been called for by the parties to whom the 

 premiums had been awarded, and' which he 

 would now hand to the treasurer. 



THE COLORADO POTATO BEETLE. 



Epiiraim Hoover, from the Special Com- 

 mittee appointed at the previous meeting to 

 investigate the case in Manheim township, 

 where five acres of potatoes had been eaten by 

 the potiito bug while a half acre separated 

 only by a fence had escaped, the condition of 

 soil and culture beiug apparently the same, 

 reported that the one lot was on the North 

 side of the fence and the other on the 

 the South side, the rows running at right 

 angles with the fence. The lot on the North 

 side was planted with Early Rose, Mercer and 

 Peerless ; that on the south side, with Early 

 Rose, Jackson AVhites and Pink-eyes. The 

 crop on the North side was the most injured, 

 nearly destroyed, and of the varieties the 

 Mercer was iiij tired the least. On the South 

 side of the fence there were very few bugs, 

 and little injury done, and of the varieties the 

 Early Rose was the least aftectcd. This w;is a 

 new piece of land ; the other had been long 

 under cultivation. He conversed with the 

 cultivators of both lots. They say the crops 

 were planted and taken up about the same 

 time. They could account for the differ- 

 ence in the ravages of the bug in no otiier 

 way than by the difference in the land, that 

 on 'which the crop was so little injured having 

 but recently been broken up. 



Wm. McComsey stated that he had corre- 

 sponded with a number of farmers with a view 

 to elicit new facts. The general opinion seemed 

 to prevail that in order to lietid off the ravages 

 of the Colorado pottito beetle, potatoes should 

 be pUmted as early in the season as they can 

 be got in. The sentiment Is— plant early; and 

 the prevailing opinion also seems to be that the 

 Early Rose variety was the least aft'ected. 



.Jno. AV. Erb said his experience was that 

 the bugs liked the Early Rose just as well when 

 they could get no other to eat; and he seriously 

 doiiljfed whether thev would be alile to get 

 ahead of the bugs by any such devices ;is early 

 planting, or changing varieties. When the 



