1876.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. 6b 



apple aud cherry. The inhabitants of cities are personally concerned in 

 this matter; since, in default of the cherry-tree, the Canker-Worm is evi- 

 dently persuaded that he might go further and fair worse than upon the 

 elm and maple. Could the General Court be induced to grant the peti- 

 tion of the Dedham Eruit-Growers' Association; seconded and enforced 

 as it was by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society; there might be 

 some hope that our orchards would not annually look as though ravaged 

 by fire. The watchful care and intervention of a competent forester, or 

 ranger, clothed with authority to abate, upon private property, that 

 public nuisance to whose existence the owner was indifferent; and at the 

 expense of such owner; would supply a speedy and effectual remedy for 

 a growing evil. But, so long as Rusticus is soothed in a morning lullaby, 

 to a lingering nap, by the strident note of the Turdus Migratorius; 

 fancying it the strain of an American jSTightingale ; just so long and 

 with like reason will he tolerate or prolong all other animated existence 

 that IS equally useless and destructive. The average Yankee will have 

 his common school. But no law — human or divine, makes it imperative 

 upon him to cultivate common sense: — more s the pity! 



In his Annual Report for 1866, your Secretary announced the slow "but 

 " sure advance from the Western States of the Republic, of another 

 "fearful ^tsi—Doryphora decemlincata — the ten (10) lined spearman; a 

 " new potato-bug. This insect is said to be advancing eastward at the rate 

 " of fifty (50) miles a year." And a hope was expressed that before it 

 reacned our border, some easier and quicker method for its destruction 

 might be deviled by the scientific skill and practical sagacity of our 

 friends at the West than that of picking off by hand. And again, in 

 1867: — "The account from the V\^estern States of the destruction caused 

 " by the Dorypthora decemlinacata, or ten-lined spearman, to the existence 

 " of which insect your attention was invited in the Report of 1866, are 

 " well calculated to awaken increased alarm among cultivators of the 

 " potato. It is astonishing, and would be disgraceful were we authorized 

 " from their past history to expect anything better, that our State So- 

 " cieties and Boards of Agriculture should await, with such stolid indif- 

 " ference, the steady appearance of this pest." These citations, if show- 

 ing nothing else, at least demonstrate that some of the sentinels upon the 

 watch tower of Horticulture are vigilant and keen to espy the enemy 

 while he is yet afar off. But the Colorado Beetle has arrived, at last, 

 although for the present calendar year only in skirmisbiug order. 

 During the past season he was apparently occupied in surveying our 

 defences, and strengthening his own forces, which last he has a wonderful 

 faculty and facility for doing. And still, all that we are permitted to 



