168 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[Xovember, 



other attaches its eggs unrter the leaves. Hence there 

 are two forms of eggs. From one the borer comes, 

 and from the other that nasty worm that strips the 

 currant anil tlie gooseberry bushes of tlicir leaves. 

 There are three forms of the worm ; one is a borer ; 

 the second eats the leaves, and from this one another 

 is molted, and this entering the pupa state makes 

 eight transformations, which complete its rhythm. 



And now it becomes manifest as to the method for 

 its utter extermination. All these cut ort' stems or 

 canes can be counted, and so easily they may be cut 

 off again ; and if this be done in time the currant 

 worm is annihilated. And this summer and fall, witli 

 a sharp knife, take off a piece of these cut ends be- 

 low where the borer may have penetrated. By the 

 middle of July it is down two inches or more, and by 

 November it will have killed ten inches of the stem ; 

 and late in the fall I have found more than one borer 

 in a stem, and I have suspicion that, in some cases, 

 this borer penetrates down into the root far enough 

 to come up and out of another cane than that one 

 where it began. It is best to attend to these cutoff 

 tops immediately on discovering them. The cut you 

 make should be with an upward slope from the axil 

 of a leaf below. In this way you may facilitate the 

 continued growth of the upward stem, and the slant 

 of your cut will enable you, from time to time, when 

 inspecting your buslies, to distinguish those you have 

 attended to from any others niutihitcd l)y the fly. I 

 have demonstrated the IjeneHts of this method in my 

 own garden ; and the present year, but lor the gar- 

 dens of my neighbors, my battle with this enemy 

 would have been but a small affair. And I am sure, 

 that if all who grow currants in any ou^ locality were 

 to unite in following up this process for ayear or two, 

 the hated currant Worms, heretofore so numerous, 

 would soon become lew and far between. Hence- 

 forth I abandon all hope from the hellebore and go 

 for certain and utter extermination. — L. R. S., 



The foregoing we clip from the New York 

 Semi-Weekly Tribune of August 27, 1875. It 

 is rarely that we fiud such a conii)lete snhna- 

 gf«)idi of truth and error as is here dished up 

 by this astute octogentirian, in giving the 

 "rythm" of the "currant ^vol■m." We think 

 that extended oViservation and investigation 

 will lead him to diftereut conclusions in refer- 

 ence to the unity of his subject and its " eight 

 transformations." If he does not discover 

 that he lias sadly mixed up the history and 

 transformations of several species of currant 

 worms — and of which there are perhaps a 

 dozen— then economic entomology may go 

 begging for another eighty years before the 

 "rythm" of the currant worm is developed, 

 and its "certain extermination" efl'ected. 

 There are many authorities in Massachusetts, 

 both living and dead— Harris, Peck, Packard, 

 Mann, etc. — of whom had he taken counsel 

 he might have very ntuch facilitated his inves- 

 tigations, and have come to an intelligent and 

 rational conclusion. 



It would be next to impossible to say to 

 What particular species of worm the various 

 phases of the above observations allude ; but 

 we may be allowed to infer that he has refer- 

 ence to Hadena arctica, one of the cut-worm 

 moths, the larva of which lias long been known 

 to devour the leaves of both the gooseberry 

 and the currant. This worm is usually con- 

 cealed under the soil during the day, and 

 climbs up and cuts off and devours the leaves 

 during the night. Digging up the soil and 

 hand-picking, or dilute carliolic acid, are the 

 remedies usually applied. 



He may also have observed one phase of Dr. 

 Fitch's American "currant moth," the Abrax- 

 as ribearia, which belongs to the family of 

 Geometricians or "measuring worms." This 

 is a pale yellowish worm, with many small 

 black dots upon it, ;ind the moth is a nan- 

 keen yellow, with faint darkish btiuds across 

 the wings. This insect yields to white helle- 

 bore or hand-picking. Both these moths un- 

 dergo their transformations in the soil, under 

 the bushes, and may be dug up, sieved out and 

 destroyed. 



There are two species of Hymenoi'tera, 

 the American and the foreign (introduced) 

 currant and gooseberry "saw-flies," which 

 feed upon their leaves. These are of a green- 

 ish or pale yellowish color, and are known 

 among entomologists as the " false caterpil- 

 lars." There are two broods of these in a 

 season. The first brood undergoes its tran.s- 

 formationon the ground, among the leaves and 

 rubbish, and the second brood goes into the 



ground, where the pupa remains all winter, 

 and the "fly" makes its appearance in the 

 spring. The American species is the Priati- 

 2,hora<jrosularini>f Walsh, and the foreign spe- 

 cies is" the Neinatus nntrieosiis of Klug. These 

 insects in their larva states readily yield to ap- 

 Itlications of good hellebore or Paris green. 

 Possibly our aged "amateur" may have had 

 these in stinie of their phases under observation. 

 The four insects we htive named are all leaf- 

 eaters, and leaf-eaters only, never depredating 

 upon the currant or gooseberry in any other 

 way. But there are other enemies to these 

 bushes, the habits of which are enti^rely differ- 

 ent. Ac(ieria tijmlif'Jririig, a beautiful little 

 moth, the larva of which is a " stalk miner," 

 is one of these ; and we feel very certain, from 

 the tenor of his observations, that he was 

 "after" this insect, in part. This insect is 

 allied to Aeijeria cxitnga, which mines about 

 the liase of peach trees, and is so injurious to 

 them. Tlie aforenamed currant liorer is also 

 a foreigner, but when introduced we cannot 

 say at present, nor is it of any account just 

 now. But we have a native species, Acijeria 

 candutitiii of Harris, which very nearly resfjm- 

 bles it, Ijut is not so numerous nor so destruc- 

 tive as the foreign species. It is very singular 

 that nearly all the foreign noxious insects in- 

 troduced into this country multiply more rap- 

 idly, and are more destructive, than ournative 

 species. 



The worst American currant borer we have, 

 however, is a beetle, the Psenocenis supernota- 

 tus of Say. This also penetrates the canes 

 downwards, and no doubt the remedy recom- 

 mended by I.. R. S. may be of great benefit in 

 the forestalling or destruction of this pest. 

 This insect belongs to a long-horned family 

 (LoNCiicoRNiA). The larva of this little bee- 

 tle is a footless grub, whereas that of the Ae- 

 gcria is a regular caterpillar, having the usual 

 number of well defined feet. Several of the 

 true "bugs" also prey upon the foliage of the 

 currant ; prominent among them is the "four- 

 lined leaf bug" — Capsu>< quadrinotatiis of Siny 

 —but this individual being a suctorial insect 

 feeds onlv on the sap or juices of t!ie plants, 

 and i)robably did not come under the observa- 

 tion of L. R. S.,'or perhaps it would have been 

 •amalgamated with the general mass, and af- 

 forded a few niore transformations in its 

 "r(/(/wi." But he evidently had a squint of 

 S'/rjj7ww, perhaps S. philadelphinis, a beautiful 

 black and yellow two-winged fly, the larva of 

 which feeds on Apliids, and which conse- 

 quently is classed among our insect friends. 



As we intend, in subsequent numbers of 

 The Faumer, to give full histories of these 

 insects, with accurate illustrations, we can 

 only thus briefly allude to them in these stric- 

 turijs ; and the're are a number of other ene- 

 mies of the currant and the gooseberry that 

 might properly have been added, but are not 

 necessary now. 



We see that L. R. S. has had his paper pub- 

 lished also in the Baston Journal of Chemisiri/. 

 Perhaps after all it is more of a chemical ques- 

 tion (based on mysterious affinities) than an 

 entomological one. Economic entomology 

 needs more patient, persevering and accurate 

 explorers, in order to disentangle and simplify 

 its details ; but we question the utility of such 

 efforts as the one we Iiave been reviewing, be- 

 cause they grossly pervert the fads of Natural 

 Histori/, "and involve the snijject in deeper 

 doulit among the uninformed. We accord to 

 L. R. S. a noble end or aim, liut we think he 

 misapprehends the means of attaining it. 



To show into what a labyrinth of doubt and 

 mystery reading siit-h papers precipitates the 

 hortictiltural student, we append an extract 

 from the Soni- Weekbj Tribune of Sept. 17th. 

 This writer is a little nearer, but still wide of 

 the mark ; and we are tempted to exclaim, "(J 

 LeRoy Sunderland, LeRoy Sunderland, O!" 

 TnKCuiiitAXT Wf)UM.— In a late issue of Th,r Ti-l- 

 //«/((■ is a long communication on the currant worm, 

 showing ranch research, and claiming the discovery 

 of a sovereign and jierpetual remedy. From the 

 small experience I have had I think tlic chances are 

 that " L. K. S.," by a little attention, will be aJ)Ie to 

 make still further discoveries, and thus perhajis ef- 

 fectually extirpate the dreaded enemy. It would be 

 a happy thing, if it is true, that all their eggs are laid 



in the branches of the bush, and that by cutting and 

 burning they could thus be destroyed ; but I am in- 

 clined to think there is some mistake about this. 

 Now, it is true that there is a borer of some kind that 

 bores down into the branches of the common kind of 

 currants, and undoubtedly it is the same that destroys 

 the leaves subsequently. Every Ijraneh thus bored 

 into will wither and die. I am inclined to the opinion 

 that there if more than one kind, and that their habits 

 and modes of propagation are dissimilar. I have as- 

 certained that this methanieal borer is not armed and 

 equipped with a boring apparatus so effective as to 

 enable him to penetrate the canes of the Versailles 

 currant. They continue to grow larger and taller 

 every year, and bear bountifully, and never a borer 

 makes his appearance. But tlie black long fly ap- 

 pears regularly in the spring, depositing its eggs on 

 the leaves. White hellebore is the sovereign remedy 

 for the insects, and two applications, when the dew 

 is on, winds np their career. — R. L. Dorr, Livingston 

 county y A^. 1'.. 



" This fly has never been described in any 

 work on eiitomology that I have seen." "Nor 

 am I aware that the rythm of this currant 

 worm has ever been described." Perhaps not; 

 but it can hardly be supposed that a man in 

 his "eighth decade," who professes to have 

 only recently turned his attention to the sub- 

 ject, could have been much of an entomologi- 

 cal or horticultural reader, or could have had 

 very extensive access to such works. To be 

 able to say that we have never seen anything 

 in print on any subject, under such circum- 

 stances, may not be saying much after all. 

 That will depend much upon the extent and 

 character of our reading ; Imt in any event 

 does not prove that there is nothing extant 

 upon the subject. We question, however, 

 whether this writer would ever find a confirma- 

 tion of his assumptions if he had the entomo- 

 logical literature of the whole civilized world 

 before him. Moreover, the term rythm seems 

 too indefinite and obsolete to be applied to 

 such a subject, and we confess ourself alto- 

 gether ignorant of its value in this relation. 

 Between the lids of Webster's Quarto un- 

 abridged, with its 1,76.5 pages, the word 

 does "not occur, and hence is not defined. 

 If ever the word had a definite meaning it is 

 probably too obsolete to be entitled to a place 

 in a dictionary now. If it expresses some 

 phase of thought too ethereal or evanescent to 

 be defined, it Is questionable whether it can be 

 of any use in illustrating a subject of such a 

 material character as entomology. We do not 

 desire to be hypercritical, but in discussing the 

 facts of Natural History we claim the privilege 

 of instituting a comparison between fact and 

 fiction ; and if we appear to be giving too 

 much prominence to the paper we have quoted 

 we can only reply that a production which has 

 been dignified by a place in the columns of the 

 New York Tribune and the Boston Journal of 

 Chemistry, cannot be beneath the notice of an 

 honorable cotemporary who feels an interest 

 in all that relates to the economies of the 

 world of nature, as the basis of higher aspir- 

 ations. 



i^ 



CHINCH-BUG, OR MORMON LOUSE. 

 ( Rhtjptt voch roniun df'vastator. ) 



This insect, which when full grown, is only 

 about one-twelfth of an inch in length, yet be- 

 comes so numerous sometimes as to seriously 

 injure, if not totally destroy, the crops of 

 wheat and corn. It was very destructive last 

 season in some of the Western States, and 

 while we do not propose to give its history in 

 this issue of our journal, we may state, as a 

 preliminary, that Dr. Sheimer, of Illinois, es- 

 timated the damage done to tlie wheat crop of 

 that State, in 1864, at over ,«73,000,000. Each 

 female deposits about .500 eggs, and some idea 

 mtiy lie formed of their numbers and increase, 

 in favorable seasons (dry weather), when we 

 state that in Ogle county. 111. , as many as 30 

 to 40 busheles a day of these little insects were 

 taken out of holes dug in the ground to entrap 

 them, and tliatthis process was continued until 

 only four or five bushels a day could be shoveled 

 out. These insects being "sap-suckers," and 

 not leaf-eaters, would not be likely to yield to 

 Paris qreen or any other poison externally ap- 

 plied,.simply because their aliment is contained 

 between the integuments, and not on the sur- 

 ftice of the leaves. 



