NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



107 



commune with the choicest thoughts of gifted 

 men. While abroad in the fields, nature will give 

 you lessons of the deepest import. Your lands 

 will furnish you a laboratory for the testing and 

 practical application of science. These things are 

 within your reach — not like wealth, difficult, and 

 hard to be won, and only by a few, — they are 



"No special boon 

 For hitrh ami not for low, for proudly graced 

 And not for meek of heart. The smoke ascends 

 To heaven as lightly from the cottage hearth, 

 As from the haughty palace. He whose soul 

 Ponders this true equality, may tualk 

 The fields of earth with gratitude and hope." 



Brattleboro', Feb. 24, 1852. P. Holbrook. 



A NEW DEPREDATOR. 



Walking near the woods in December last, we 

 noticed a small flock of birds flying among the 

 bushes and apparently feeding upon their buds. 

 Flitting from bush to bush they presented a beau- 

 tiful appearance as the sun glanced upon their 

 bright feathers. Having no gun we were not able 

 to obtain a specimen, and saw nothing more of 

 them until within a few days, when they ap- 

 proached near our dwelling and were found feeding 

 on the apple tree buds. A flock of about a dozen 

 visited some large trees that stood near each other, 

 and in the course of two or three days the snow 

 was covered with mutilated buds as though chaft 

 had been sown upon it. On examination we found 

 the blossom buds cut open smoothly on one side, 

 the centre taken out and the hull or outside dropt 

 upon the snow. One of the birds was then sin it 

 and proved to be the female Pine Grosbeak. It is 

 nearly as large as the robin, has stout, short beak, 

 is generally an ash-color with dull yellow on the 

 back. The color of the male is purple breast and 

 back, and he is somewhat longer than the female. 



These birds occasionally visit us, we understand, 

 from higher latitudes, and have been seen in unu- 

 sual numbers this winter. Is it because the 

 weather has been so extremely cold, that they 

 have found it congenial to their habits 1 Perhap; 

 we have too hastily pronounced them "depreda- 

 tors." We may not know all their business here 

 At any rate, they are welcome to a breakfast from 

 our trees, be it bugs or buds, as some compensa 

 tion for their delightful company in these stern 

 winter days. 



Western Reserve Farmer and Dairyman. — This 

 is the title of a new periodical, devoted as its name 

 indicates, and published at Jefferson, Ohio, by G. 

 B. Miller. R. M. Walker and N. E. French, 

 Editors. It is printed in book form, on handsome 

 type, and is filled with well-written editorials and 

 judicious selections. We have selected its article 

 on the "proper time for felling timber'" for our 

 own columns. There is plenty of room, fellow-la 

 borers — go on with stout hearts. 



ISP We would call attention to the article upon 

 the "Races and Varieties of Animals," which has 



been kindly furnished by Lemuel Shattuck, Esq., 

 author of the History of Concord, and a gentle- 

 man of fine literary taste and acquirements. We 

 tope to be favored occasionally with the produc- 

 tions of his pen. 



For the New Ens-land Farmer. 

 THE HISTORY OF THE APPLE TREE. 



B Y S. P. FO W L'ER. 



[continued.] 



The canker worm has appeared at intervals, in 

 the eastern part of Massachusetts, during a period 

 of one hundred years. It is peculiar to this coun- 

 try, and differs from the Winter Moth of Europe, 

 described in Kollar's Treatise. Some writers upon 

 the cultivation of fruit trees, when describing the 

 canker worm, have made great mistakes. The au- 

 thor of the Fruit Culturist, published in New York, 

 has copied the Baron Kollar's female figure of the 

 European Winter Moth erroneously for our canker 

 worm grub. Thus giving our female wings, which, 

 very fortunately for the cultivator, it does not pos- 

 sess. We have never yet seen a better way of 

 destroying this vermin, than by the old method of 

 tarring the trees. To prevent the ascending of the 

 female, we have been in the practice, when trim- 

 ming our trees in the autumn or winter, or per- 

 haps early in the spring, to place the limbs taken 

 off, around the trunk of the tree. By so doing, in 

 many cases, they will ascend these prostrate 

 branches to deposit their eggs, instead of the tree. 

 Care should be taken to remove these branches to 

 the brush heap, before the worms are hatched. 



The insect called the autumnal caterpillar, that 

 feeds on the leaves of the apple, pear, elm and 

 other trees, has become very numerous of late 

 years. They live in small colonies, and at their 

 first appearance do not attract much notice. But 

 as they increase in size, they commence their rav- 

 ages and inclose the leaves, branches and fruit, on 

 which they feed, with their web, rendering them- 

 selves conspicuous and unsightly, to the most care- 

 less observer. To the careful and observing culti- 

 vator, they can easily be destroyed, when they first 

 appear, the whole swarm being found on one or 

 more leaves. I am of the opinion, as these insects 

 appear late, the trees do not suffer so much from 

 the loss of their leaves, as they do earlier in the 

 season from the ravages of the tent or lackey 

 caterpillar. 



The Woolly Aphis, or American Blight, is now- 

 attracting the attention of the cultivators of the 

 apple tree in this country. Doct. Harris says, 

 this insect had been noticed in England as early ; s 

 the year 1787, and has since acquired there the 

 name of American blight, from the erroneous sup- 

 position that it had been imported from this coun- 

 try. With us this insect, or something like it, h;:s 

 made its appearance where there was a flow of 

 sap, caused by the amputation of limbs hi summer 

 pruning; also under grafting clay, they have hern 

 noticed in great numbers, sucking up the sap flow- 

 ing from the wounded stump, to the great detii- 

 ment of the growth of the grafts. We discovered 

 last season the Woolly Aphis in great numbers, 

 upon the branches of a purple beech, which were 

 effectually destroyed by the application of a solu- 

 tion of whale oil soap. Plant lice of every kind 

 can usually be destroyed in this manner. The 



