1872] 



tlEPORT ON APPLES. 37 



orchard. It, is, however, very dishearteuing to the persistent and vigi- 

 lant tighter of noxious insects, even though gratified with his own success, 

 to see his neighbors engaged in projiagating the brood. A few years 

 ago, when tlic jileuro pneumimia first appeared in tliis State it was thought 

 to be of sutficieut importance to justify the calling of an extra session of 

 the General Court and the appointment of a special commission with 

 despotic power over all property invested in horned cattle. The necessity 

 for the exercise of like prompt and efficient measures for suppression of 

 the canker worm is hardly less imminent. It is a proper subject for legis- 

 lation. Let a statute be passed, making it the duty of proper officers to 

 cause preventive measures to be taken, such as the application of tar or 

 printers-ink to the trees of such persons as neglect, after due notice, to do 

 it themselves; and assess upon them the expense the same as for a better- 

 ment. There is the same authority for such legislation as there is for the 

 Dog law, or for the Game or Fish laws. 



The canker worm, however, is only one of the countless herd of 

 noxious insects, and the apple tree is only one of our domestic plants 

 subject to injury by them. Professor Charles Y. Eiley, Editor of the 

 American Entomologist and Botanist, and Entomologist to the State of 

 Missouri, estimates that " the annual loss to American agriculture from 

 iittle bugs is not less than three hundred million dollars." And this loss 

 is annually increasing. Competition of civilized with uncivilized man for 

 possession of America is not ended before the victor's title is again dis- 

 puted, this time by far more formidable competitors, and all the more 

 formidable because they are despised. The public apathy in regard to 

 insects injurious to vegetation is something amazing. Here, however, as 

 is usually the case, the policy of despising an enemy will have to be tried 

 before its unsafet}' is perceived. But that certain kinds of little bugs are 

 a far more dangerous enemy to civilization than savage men, is a fact that 

 will not have to wait many gent'rations for recognition; and the day is 

 not far distant when the science of economic entomology, or knowledge 

 of the dark ways and vain tricks of little bugs that subsist on cultivated 

 plants will be of more A-alue to the practical legislator than to have at his 

 tongue's end all the sophistries that were ever written, sung or spoken by 

 Horace Greeley or any other man in favor of protection. 



As regards the fiavor and quality of apples grown this year, doubtless 

 they would have been improved by substitution of a period of drought in 

 place of the rains of August and September. The quantity of alcoholic 

 spirit in an apple is the test of its valuable qualities. By averaging the 

 returns of fruit distilleries from all parts of the United States to the 

 Bureau of Internal Revenue, during the fiscal year 1871, it was found that 



