THE GENESEE FARMER. 



23i» 



sown seeds amonj^ sweet corn. The moment the 

 green ears are pickefJ, cut up the corn, and the to- 

 matoes, before small and spindling', now spread and 

 gain strength with great rapidity, leaving bushels for 

 the cows when the vines are cut by a late October 

 frost 



ScAKriTT OF Farm Stock. — Here are three large 

 distilleries, giving away or selling for a trifle most of 

 their slop, because they cannot stock either their 

 cattle-sheds or hog-pens; with enormous prices, our 

 farmers have nothing to sell. But to show that the 

 farmers, and not the seasons, are at fault, here is a 

 farmer who winters a large stock well, and he says 

 he has, since the first of Januar.y, sold $700 worth of 

 corn, hay, &c., all to shiftless farmers, without haul- 

 ing away a single load to sell at the villages. Many 

 of these farmers, he says, have sent money West to 

 buy land, or to loan at Western interest, while they 

 let both land and stock starve at home. Some of 

 them sold their corn early at fifty to sixty cents a 

 bushel, and bought of him, in April, at seventy-five 

 cents. 



Prairie Hat and White Butter. — In my last, I 

 adverted to the advantages of a grass-growing coun- 

 try as compared with those of the corn-growing re- 

 gion of the West and South-west. A lady, writing 

 from Ossawatamie, Kansas, says: " To be two months 

 without butter, gives one her first notion of its full 

 value." But the butter from prairie grass is white, 

 aromaless, and in stinted supply at that. She advises 

 ber brother not to bring his Chautauque horses to 

 Kansas, as they are too quick for the sloughy roads, 

 and may not relish, much less thrive on, prairie hay. 

 But she also gives the bright side of the picture, con 

 amore. Tomatoes in blosssm and wild strawberries 

 ripe on the first of June, and radishes for tea on the 

 seventh; then the large, smooth gooseberries,|and wild 

 plums growing in wild profusion; the everlasting 

 prairie, blooming with many floral specimens, known 

 here only as house-plants. But then there is a pau- 

 city of timber and shade trees, except along the 

 creek bottoms, where no man can stay with impunity 

 nntil cold weal her has expelled both mosquitoes and 

 miasma. There are thirteen inhabited shanties in 

 sight from her log cabin, and many more the other 

 side of the knoll, some of which have a family hold- 

 ing two or three claims, and every claim is taken up 

 for many railes beyond. The lowest price, even for 

 an open prairie claim, at second hand, was $350. 

 The Hoosier they bought of left a table, which, after 

 being scraped and washed with weak lye, was a fine 

 substitute for their awkward, cumbersome dry-goods 

 box. But all are in happy exhilaration, amused rather 

 than annoyed or tried by tteir daily make shifts and 

 sore privations — relieved always by success and hap- 

 piness in continual perspective. Even when the 

 prairies dry up blossomless, and the cows fail to give 

 milk, the mighty ears of Indian corn come forward 

 in such abundance as to do away with all fear that 

 hog and hominy will ever again fail ; and if health 

 continues, ever-blessed custom soon reconciles both 

 man and woman to the circumstances around them. 

 As all are now in the same category, the equality of 

 social privation makes it not only endurable, but even 

 interestingly picturesque. When a few families, by 

 industry and thrift, get so far ahead of their neigh- 

 bors as to furnish a painted house, then, and not till 

 then, will social troubles begin. 



Waterloo, JV. Y. 



THE MAY-BEETLE 



Mr. Harris: — The "field grub," of which such 

 a clear and exact description is given in the interest- 

 ing communication of Mr. Ai)am.s, is plainly the larr;; 

 of an insect of the group or tribe named MEi.or.ON- 

 THin^, in the order CoLKorTERA; and I presume th' 

 insect into which these grubs will change, is our com 

 mon " May-bug," or May-beetle, as it ought to h\ 

 designated* — though, as we have several other iu 

 sects nearly related to this, and possessing probabh 

 the same habits, it may possibly be one of thep». 

 This can only be conclusively ascertained by watch- 

 ing these grubs until they complete their growth, 

 and issue from the ground in their perfect or winged 

 state. As it is so very probable, however, that thea- 

 grubs are the larvte of the May-beetle, I send you an 

 account of this insect, it being a vile culprit, both ii 

 its larva and its perfect state. And if the field grul. 

 of which Mr. Adams eolicits information is not thi. 

 very insect, it will be a kindred one, closely similar to 

 it in every respect 



It is a matter of the utmost importance to ascer- 

 tain the correct scientific name of an insect, a plan', 

 or other natural object — for, though unfortunately 

 such name is often most ungainly and difficult to pro 

 nounce by common persons, it still has the grea; 

 recommendation that it clearly and definitely specifier 

 the very thing to which it refers, all the world over, 

 and will continue to be the name of that thing througi 

 all coming time; whereas, common cr popular namet 

 are liable to differ in different neighborhoods of th« 

 same country, and to be changed from time to tirat. 

 Scientific names are composed of two words, and arr 

 quite analagous to the names of persons — one o' 

 these words being the generic or family name, ami 

 the other the specific or baptismal name. The for- 

 mer name may change from time to time, as when s 

 woman becomes married or re-married; but the spe 

 cific or baptismal name is never changed. A falsf 

 name, however, or as we commonly term it, a nick- 

 name, may happen to be given to a person quite ex 

 tensively, but no gentlemen will apply that name {>.■■ 

 him when informed that it is not his original baptib 

 mal name. Such names, in science, are termed syno- 

 nyms. Though many of the readers of the Genefcr 

 Farmer may already be familiar with this subject, i 

 presume others of them will understand more clearl\ 

 what is to follow, from the explanation now made. 

 As the May-beetle is one of our most injurious in- 

 sects, it is particularly important that its correct sci- 

 entific name be well ascertained and definitely estab- 

 lished. And we regret that the position in which 

 this matter at present stands is such that we are 

 obliged to make an unpleasant exposure, yet one 

 which it is impossible to avoid in elucidating the 

 topic before us. 



As to the generic name of this insect, some con- 

 fusion has arisen among authors, from a most disin- 



• The custom of calling all insects " bngs," is often denounced 

 as being an Amerieanism ; but tliis, like many others of these re- 

 puted Americanisms, we obtained from our father-land. Thu», tJse 

 European analogue of the insect we are treating upon, we see in 

 termed the 'iAa.j-bug in the English translation of Kollak'& 

 Treatise — a clear evidence that we have obtained th« name whici 

 we give to our insect, from England. And in several other in- 

 stances, the name bug vrill be met with in British publicatioms, ap- 

 plied to beetles. Still, every-person intelligent ujen this »ubjtei 

 is aware it will be an improvement in our language toj give tli«- 

 name beetle to all hard, crustaceous-eoatcd in.s€€t«, which b«l»n^ 

 to the order Colkoptera, and restrict the name }mg to the ordri 

 Hrmipter-A., or those flat-backed insets which em«it thesaMe (lit>- 

 gusting scent as the well-known bed-bug. 



