186 



NEW ENGLAND PAUMER. 



Jan. 2, 18:29. 



ile, while only a fifth of the surface of France is 

 considered fertile. The population of Italy is 

 greater in proportion to its surface than that of 

 either France or Great Britain. 



The writers on the rural economy of Italy, are 

 Arthur Young, in 1788, Sigismondi, in 1801, and 

 Chateauvieux, in 1812. 



In Lonibardy, the lands are generally farmed 

 by metayers, (from metn one half). The landlord 

 pays the taxes and repairs the buildings. The 

 tenant provides cattle, implements and seeds, and 

 the produce is divided. The irrigation of laiids 

 in Lonibardy is a remarkable feature of Italian 

 husbandry. All canals taken from rivers are the 

 property of the state, and may be carried through 

 any man's land, provided they do not pass through 

 a garden, or within a certain distance of a man- 

 sion, on paying the value of the grojnd occupied. 

 Water is not only employed for grass-lands, which, 

 when fully watered, are mowed four, and some- 

 times five times a year ; and in some cases as 

 early as March, but is conducted between the nar- 

 row ridges of corn lands, in the holows between 

 drilled crops, among vines, or to flood lands, a 

 foot or more in depth, which are sown with rice. 

 Water is also used for depositing t surface mud 

 in some places where it is charged with that ma- 

 terial. The details of watering for these and 

 other purposes are given in varions works, and 

 collected in those of Professor Re. In gen- 

 eral, watered lands let at one third higher price 

 than those not irrigated. 



The implements and operations of agriculture 

 in Lombardy, are both very imperfect. The 

 plough is a very rude contrivance, with a handle 

 thirteen or fourteen feet long. But the cattle are 

 fed with extraordinary care. They arc tied up in 

 stalls, then bled once or twice, cleaned and rub- 

 bed with oil ; afterwards combed and brushed 

 twice a day. Their food in summer i:i clover or 

 other green herbage ; in winter a mixture of elm- 

 leaves, clover-hay, and pulierized walnut-cake, 

 over which boiling water is poured, and bran and 

 salt added. In a short time the cattle cast their 

 hair, grow smooth, round and fat, and so improv- 

 ed as to double their value to the butcher. 



The tomato or love-apple (sotanum lycoperstcum) 

 so extensively used in Italian cookery, forms an 

 article of field culture near Pompeii, and especial- 

 ly in Sicil}', from whence they are sent to Naples, 

 Rome, and several towns on the Rlediterranean 

 sea. (To be continued.) 



Williams, in his book on West Florida, remarks 

 of the cultivation of Indigo in that country, that 

 Caracas, alone was able to rival Florida, in this 

 article ; forty thousand pounds sterling in one 

 year, has been paid in London, for Florida Indigo ; 

 yet at this time not a pound is raised in the terri- 

 tory for sale ; a few planters cultivate it for the 

 use of their families ; yet it is raised with le.ss 

 trouble than any other crop, and any female slave 

 can manufacture it. This plant also is a native 

 of Florida ; its natural soil is the Pine Barrens. 



FOR THS N£W ENGLAND FARMER. 



INSECTS ON FRUIT TREES. 



Mr Fessenden — Your Pennsylvania corres- 

 pondent, M, appears to have noticed two distinct 

 insects on the apple-tree, one of which, as Mr Buel 

 remarks, you did not advert to in your Farmer of 

 the 5th instant.* I regret that you overlooked a 

 conjecture hazarded in the memorandum furnished 

 you, the substance of which was, that the " dark 

 colored iu.sect, on the body of the tree, about the 

 size and shape of a small grain of cofliee, with t 

 bristly coat, and no wings," might be the apterous 

 female of a moth, several species of which (besides 

 that of the canker-worm) are conanon here.tl 

 That this insect had no connexion whatever with | 

 the minute muscle-like insects observed on the ] 

 trees no one can doubt wIk) has read Mr Perley's 

 communication on the bark-louse, a species of 

 Coccus, and Mr Loudon's description of the Amer- 

 ican blight, Eriosoma mali of Leach, Aphis La- 

 nata or lanigera of other naturalists. 



The account given by M. was not sufficiently 

 detailed and particular to enable us to decide 

 tvhich of these two latter insects his probably vas, 

 although it appeared most to resemble the birk- 

 louse of Mr Perley. 



It has not yet been ascertained whether our 

 bark-louse is the same as that described by Reau- 

 mur and GeofFroy, and observed by Shaw ind 

 Kirby on the apple-trees of England ; but •urs 

 agrees in size and shape with theirs, and it is 

 highly j)robable, if it is identical, that we are as 

 much indebted to Europeans for introducing this 

 and other lousy complaints, as they are to us for 

 the American blight, which, however, I have never 

 seen. In regard to the introduction of in.setts, I 

 am fully persuaded that we liave no species, in 

 common with those of the Eastern world, which 

 have not accompanied man and his imports from 

 thence. 



Perhaps a few general remarks on the.oeconomy 

 of the Coccus genus may not be unacceptable to 

 some of your readers, and may stimulate tliem to 

 complete, by careful observation, the hiitory of 

 Mr Perley's species. 



Early in the spring the Cocci are four*! apjia- 

 rently torpid, situated longitudinally in regard to 

 the branch, the head upwards, and sticking by 

 their flattened inferior surface closely to tin bark. 

 On attempting to remove them they are geierally 

 crushed, and there issues from the body i dark 

 colored fluid. By piercing them with a pii they 



Sheep. — A meeting of the citizens of Orange 

 county has been called at Goshen, N. Y. to devise 

 some plan to jirotect their sheepfolds from the 

 ravages of dogs, the existing laws being insufiicient. 



Ginger Root. — Mr Raiford, near Savannah, has 

 raised ginger root for the last four years, success- 

 fully, on common land, and exposed to all the va- 

 riations of the climate. 



* We InlencleH, however, to make our remarks appiieablp in 

 two distinct specins of insects. One wliich was descrbed by 

 " M " as having an appearance which " resembled ihp bnssoni.s 

 of timothy or some small grass, shaken on the trunk ot'tti? tree, 

 when wet with dew, and remaining on it. — After whici they 

 appeared to increase in size to about the liiffncss of shotNo. 8 

 cut in two and a little lengthened ; and formed a Cfivcr, rdher- 

 ing to the bark, under which the insect, whatever it m.-ry be, 

 was found," &c. [Si'P p. 142.] This we supposed mixht tc the 

 bark -louse of Mr I'erley, bnt having doubts on the subject, af- 

 ter describing th" Perley insect, we remarked: "The al«ove 

 description of a destructive insect, and the remedy prescribed 

 by Mr Perley. may be of use, allhnugh the insect 7naij no! hftlu 

 same with Ilial which has annoyed the fruit trees of our corres- 

 pondent ' M.' " We then quoted from Kirby and Spenc-, noti- 

 ces of the. r/nca Corticelta. and Atborum Live aris, which wc 

 concluded might be identical with the ms&cijirst menlioued by 

 "M." 



Haying done with this insect w-e then took up the other on 

 the last column of page 158 as fi,llows, viz : 



" The insect described b3- ' M,' page 142, found on the body 

 of the tree about (he size and shape of a small gram of coiTee," 

 &c. See also our note p. 169. — Editor. 



t After we had commenced wiiting the editorial article p. 153, 

 and before we had completed it. the " memorandum " was mis- 

 laid, and has not since come to hand. This we regret, as we 

 set a high value on the commuaicatious of the author. — ^Ed. 



can be made to (juit their hold, which I hare often 

 seen in the common species of the myrtle. Coccus 

 leeperidum. A little later the body is more svvel- 

 led, and, on carefully raising it with a knife, nu-' 

 nierous eggs of an oblong form will be discovered 

 beneath it, and the insect a])pears dried up and 

 dead, and forming only a convex cover to its fu- 

 ture progeny. Under this protection the young 

 are htitclied, and, on the approach of warm wea- 

 ther, make their escape at the lower end of the 

 shell which is slightly elevated at that part. They 

 then move with considerable activity, and disperse 

 themselves over the young shoots or leaves. The 

 shape of the yotuig coccus is nnich like that of 

 its parent, but the body is of a paler color, more 

 Ihin and flattened. Its six legs and proboscis are 

 vistble under a magnifier. Some species are cov- 

 ered with a mealy powder, as in the C. cacti, or 

 Cochenille of commerce. These little lice insert 

 iheir proboscis into the bark and leayes, and draw 

 from the cellular substance the sap which nour- 

 ishes them. Reaumur observed the ground quite 

 moist imder peach-trees infested with Cocci, which 

 was caused by the dripping of the sap from the 

 ntimcrous punctures made by these insects. 

 While they continue their exhausting suction of 

 sap they increase in size, and during this time, 

 are in what is called the larva; state. When this 

 is completed they are still of different magnitudes, 

 and set about their transformation by sjunning 

 from the mouth minute whitish filaments, which 

 are affixed in a radiate manner to the bark, and 

 which confine and secure the body in its situation. 

 (Do not these constitute the specks of blue moulil 

 noticed by Mr Perley ?) They now remain appa- 

 rently inanimate ; but under these lifeless scales 

 the metamorphosis of the insect is conducted ; 

 with this remarkable difference, that, in a few 

 days, the large ones contrive to break up and throw 

 off, in 4 or 5 flakes, their former coats, and reap- 

 pear in a very similar form to that which they 

 before had : the smaller ones, on the contrary, 

 continue under their envelope, which serve as 

 cocoons, and from which they seem to shrink and 

 detach themselves, and then become perfect pupse, 

 the rudiments of wings, antennte, feet, &c, being 

 discoverable, on raising the shells. If we follow 

 the progress of these smali ones (which are to pro- 

 duce the 7)iales) we shall see, in process of time, 

 a pair of filaments and the tips of the wings pro- 

 truding beneath the shell at its lower elevated 

 part, and, through this little passage, the jierfect 

 insect at length backs out. The pupse coat of the 

 female is never cast off, so far as we can discover, 

 but continues adherent and flexible, and the'insect 

 itself never afterwards changes place. The male 

 is exceedingly small in comparison with the fe- 

 male, and is an anomaly in the order, (Hemiptera) 

 having only two wings or hemelytra, though La- 

 treille detected, in one species, vestiges of another 

 |)air of witigs, which resembled the balancers of 

 flies. The tail of the male is furnished with an, 

 elongated curved stilet, and a pair of slender, long, 

 filaments. The ovaries of the female are fecun- 

 dated through the small aperture beneath the 

 lower tij) of the shell. After this her body grad- 

 ually augtneiits, becomes more convex, and when, 

 the eggs are matured they are extruded and spread 

 by the contraction of her body beneath its envel- 

 ope, till the fond mother perishes in her labors, 

 but still shields with her body the eggs which are 

 to give birth to her future ofl"spring. 



There are several broods of some species in," 



